High-Security Lock Installation

It depends on how your building fails. If your street door is propped open all day and your apartment door has a hollow frame, spend money there first — we'll tell you that on the assessment. But if the door and frame are sound, the cylinder is the remaining weak point: bump keys and picks leave no forced-entry evidence, which also complicates insurance claims. A Mul-T-Lock or Maxtek cylinder closes the covert-entry route and, just as importantly, ends the question of who's holding copies of your key. For most brownstone and co-op owners it's a one-time cost that outlasts the tenancy of everyone who ever had a spare.

Both resist picking, bumping, and drilling far beyond a standard cylinder; both run on restricted keyways with controlled duplication. Mul-T-Lock is the established international system — telescoping pin-in-pin mechanism, hardened anti-drill elements, deep patent protection, and the broadest range of formats, which matters when you're keying odd pre-war hardware or building a large restricted master system. Maxtek delivers strong pick and drill resistance at a lower price, which makes it the sensible pick for rental units, secondary doors, or budget-conscious storefronts. We stock both and will tell you plainly when the cheaper one is enough — upselling every door to the flagship line is how the other guys do it.

No. Restricted keyways are protected by patent and by contract: the blanks aren't distributed to hardware stores, and self-serve kiosks can't source or cut them. Duplicates are cut only by an authorized dealer, only for the registered keyholder presenting the system's control card. That's the feature — if you give a key to a contractor for a week, you know exactly how many keys exist when the week is over. Guard the control card like a bank card; whoever holds it holds the authority to order keys. If a card is lost, tell us and we'll flag the system so duplication requires re-verification.

On an apartment or any residential entry door in an occupied NYC building — no, and we won't install one there. Egress rules require the door to open from the inside in one motion without a key or special knowledge; in a fire, a keyed interior cylinder is how people get trapped, and it creates real liability with FDNY and HPD. The legitimate concern behind the request — usually glass near the lock — is solved differently: a high-security cylinder with an interior thumbturn, laminated glazing or glass protection, and a reinforced strike. On certain commercial doors outside business hours there are narrow lawful configurations, and we'll walk through them honestly rather than bolt on a violation.

Usually just the cylinder, and that's exactly why this upgrade works well in co-ops. Mortise cylinders are threaded and standardized; in most cases we screw a Mul-T-Lock or Maxtek cylinder into your existing mortise case with a matching finish collar, and from the hallway the door looks unchanged — which keeps boards and managing agents happy. Same story for rim cylinders feeding a jimmy-proof drop bolt. Check your alteration agreement, but a cylinder swap rarely triggers the approval process a full hardware change does. If your lock case itself is failing, we'll show you the wear and quote that separately instead of hiding it in the job.

A single-door cylinder swap is typically done in one visit — we stock Mul-T-Lock and Maxtek on the van and pin cylinders in-house, so there's no order-and-wait for common formats. Multi-door or keyed-alike jobs usually run one visit after a walkthrough. Additional restricted keys are cut at either office — 170 Hicks St in Brooklyn Heights or 232 Leonard St in Williamsburg — for verified keyholders with the control card, generally same visit since we're an authorized point for the systems we install. Unusual formats or large batches can add lead time, and we'll tell you the real number when you order rather than promising same-day and slipping.