Common Faults - UPVC doors

As with anything, the more complex the mechanism, the more that can go wrong with it. As an emergency locksmith i get called to all manor of problems with UPVC doors and though i would provide some helpful information about the most common faults.

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"The doors locking points work fine when the door is open, but won't when closed"

With age and use, the hinges holding the door in place can drop slightly causing the locking points to fall out of alignment with their keeps. Most hinges can be adjusted to compensate for this, as can the keeps for the locking points.

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"When locking the door, the key just spins around or cannot be removed when locked"

The central cam in the cylinder may have disconected or re positioned itself in the wrong location. The cylinder will need to be changed to restore functionality.

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"The door is difficult to lock at certain times of the year"

UPVC doors suffer during extreme weather, and grow/shrink with the extremes. The keeps for the locking points may need to be adjusted to compensate and allow functionality year round.

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"The Handles won't lift up/press down or the key won't turn to far enough to unlock the door"

The central gearbox may have failed, By far the most common fault with these mechanisms is gearbox failure. Usually due to a combination of age and lack of maintenance, once failed, these almost always need to be replaced. Depending on the age of the door and type of mechanism, this can either be a simple change of gearbox or a more complex full mechanism change (usually in situations where the mechanism is no longer in production).

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"The key has fully turned and the handle pressed down but the door won't open"

Multi point locks operate from a central gearbox and can occasionally partly fail. When this happens you will find that half of the door with unlock with the other half remaining firmly in place (press the top and bottom inward to see which half is jammed). This occurs when one of the locking arms disengages from the gearbox, leaving the door jammed shut. Depending on the locking points (rolers/hooks) this can either be quite simple or quite difficult to overcome and will likely require a full change of mechanism.