About
A town where one door often belongs to four.
Fernside has worked the island since 2013, day and night, answering on (510) 439-0869. The usual call: a street door shared by four households after one of them lost the key, an upstairs flat door that will not latch, a row of mail doors with one lock drilled out years ago, a Park Street shop door whose bolt no longer throws. The pinning kit is aboard with a key machine, so a key plan for a whole building is cut and handed over by the afternoon.
4.9 / 5· 226 reviews from Alameda, the island and Bay Farm
2013
Taking island calls since
24/7
Someone answers, any hour
90 days
Standing behind the labor
Who answers for the key plan
Most addresses I get sent to on this island hold more than one household, and I take that as the first fact of every job. I would rather lose a call than repin a street door because one neighbor asked, when three others carry keys to it.
What I answer for personally is the key plan I leave behind: every key handed out that afternoon turns its own lock, or it gets put right under the ninety days.
Julio Sarmiento
Owner · 18 years on island doors · with Fernside since 2013
Whose shop this is, and since when
Fernside Lock Shop has been taking Alameda calls since 2013, and it has never had a counter to walk into, for the plain reason that what has stopped working is screwed to a porch door or fitted to a car standing at a curb and is not going to be carried anywhere. The name comes off the streets along the east shore by the Fruitvale bridge; the working base sits near Park Street, which is why the island is reached in 12 to 27 minutes and 18 is the figure most people get. Julio Sarmiento holds the business and still runs calls on it.
Four things it is not, said plainly rather than left to be assumed. Not a franchise holding a territory drawn on a map in another state. Not a dealership outlet and not tied to one lock maker's catalog. Not a booking desk that writes down an address and auctions it to whichever van bids fastest. And not a name that changes every couple of years once the reviews catch up with it. One 510 number rings this shop, one person sends the van, and the technician on your steps is paid by the business that gave you the figure.
Stock picked for an island of divided houses
Loading a van here means loading it for a whole address rather than for one leaf, because a single street number on this island routinely carries three or four locks with three or four different people entitled to decide about them. Tall painted front doors from before the war take period mortise cases, narrow-stile hardware and trim that will not crowd the glass beside the lock. Flat doors behind the stair take deadbolts, since a good number of them have only ever had a latch above the handle. Beside the porch sits a row of mail doors running on cams and small wafer packs in the usual sizes, and a side gate wanting latches and hasps that can stand a decade of salt air.
Two more sets ride along. Aluminum deadlatches, hookbolts, closers and closer parts for the shopfronts on Park Street and Webster Street and for the plainer man-doors, bays and yard gates out at the west end. Blanks, chips and programmers for most of what parks on these blocks, cut and coded beside the vehicle. Keeping all of that aboard is what lets an entire key plan — the street door, four flat doors and a mail row — be pinned and handed over in one afternoon, instead of leaving a building half finished while a part is on order.
Whose Door It Is Comes First
Four things that hold the same way on a divided Victorian in Central Alameda, a thirties house on the Fernside bend, a glass shopfront on Park Street and a warehouse man-door out at Alameda Point. Ninety days on the labor, written on the receipt as its own line.
- Shared — one leaf, one cylinder, every household on the stair carrying a key to it
- The door onto the sidewalk
- One flight up or straight back along the hall, and yours alone to decide about
- Your own door behind the stair
- Four small locks in one frame beside the porch, and the side gate the neighbors also walk through
- The mail row and the gate to the yard
What happens between the phone call and the paperwork
Three things get settled while you are still on the phone. Which leaf you are standing at. Who is entitled to approve work on it, since your own flat door is yours alone and the street door, the mail row and the yard gate belong to whoever holds the building. And the figure, which comes off the published list with the $89 visit already sitting inside it, plus $50 for an arrival between 8pm and midnight or $88 between midnight and 7am, both named while you are still deciding. Master key systems and access control are the two that carry no printed range, because a building nobody has walked through cannot be counted honestly from a desk.
Then you get an arrival time worked from where the van actually stands and which of the three lift bridges or two tubes lies in front of it, and a text carrying the technician's name and the window. At the door, ID goes against the address or a registration against the plate. Picks, decoders and bypass tools come out of the case ahead of anything destructive; where drilling turns out to be the sensible route you hear what it costs and what goes back on before anyone agrees to it, and the number locked on the call does not move either way. You turn the lock yourself before the case closes. Card or tap at the curb, an itemized receipt in your inbox, ninety days on the labor written as its own line.
Where the honest answer is smaller than the sale
A fair share of what gets described on the phone as a dead lock is a house that has moved rather than hardware that has failed. A bolt no longer reaching its keeper is usually a porch that settled and a strike anchored in casing instead of framing, which is an eighth of an inch and two long screws rather than a purchase. Five keys that no longer agree with each other is a rekey at $30 to $47 a cylinder, not five new locks. An old mortise case in a divided Victorian can generally be cleaned, re-sprung and repinned, and the trim stays where the builder put it. Saying that out loud costs the sale and keeps the customer, and most of the work on this island arrives through people who were told it.
Some jobs also get declined on the call, which is far better than declining them after somebody has crossed the water. Springs, cables, panels and opener motors on garage doors belong to another trade and get named as such. A few makes tie key programming to a dealer tool. Safes with relocking devices, and high-security keys cut only against a registered card, are called what they are instead of attempted. And a shared street door is not opened or repinned on the word of whoever happens to be standing beside it, however reasonable that person sounds, because the neighbors on that stair hold keys to the same cylinder and none of them are on the phone.
Where we work
Alameda, the island and Bay Farm, any hour
Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.
FAQ
What people ask about the shop itself
Is this an independent shop, or a booking service that sells the call on?+
Independent, and working one island. The 510 number on this site rings this business, the person sent to you works for it, and no address is passed to a third van for a cut. It is worth knowing the difference, because a large share of what ranks above the map results is a desk in another state: it takes the call, sells the job, and has no stake in whether the figure quoted on the phone survives the trip to your porch. Here the quote and the receipt are produced by the same people.
How long has the shop worked on Alameda?+
Since 2013, on the same work the whole time: lockouts, rekeys, key plans for buildings of flats, hardware on shopfront and warehouse doors, and car keys. Julio Sarmiento has 18 years on island doors behind him, which is longer than the shop has existed and is most of why the local patterns get named rather than discovered on your time — porches that settled and dragged the keeper out of line, strikes screwed into casing, mail rows answering to more keys than there are boxes.
Is there a counter I can bring a lock to?+
There is none, and that is a decision rather than a shortfall. A storefront means rent, opening hours and a drive across the island at the worst moment of somebody's day, and half of what we handle cannot be unscrewed and carried anyway. The van works from near Park Street instead: Park Street District about 12 minutes, Gold Coast 14, Fernside 16, Central Alameda 18, South Shore 20, West End 22, Alameda Point 25, Bay Farm Island 27 over its own bridge. Key cutting, repinning and fob coding all happen at your curb off the bench that rides along.
Who turns up at the address, and how do I know it is them?+
Somebody whose name reached you before the van did. The text sent at dispatch carries the technician's name and the arrival window, and holding that text up against the person in front of you costs nothing and settles the question. If what pulls up does not match what you were told, you are entitled to send it away and call the number back. On a shared entrance there is a second confirmation as well: the yes from the owner or the management company is in hand before anyone sets off, not sought from your hallway.
Does anything here get drilled, and who decides that?+
You are told before a case is opened, not after a hole appears. Most flat doors, street doors, mail cams, shopfront latches and car doors on this island come open non-destructively and keep working afterward. Where a cylinder is seized, already wrecked by a previous forcing, or built to a standard that defeats picking, the technician explains what drilling costs, what replaces it and what else could be tried, then waits for your answer. On a shared leaf that conversation goes to whoever holds the building as well. Either way the figure agreed on the phone is the figure on the receipt.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say whether it is the street door or your own, and the rest of the call is short
Alameda and Bay Farm, at any hour. Which leaf it is decides who approves the work, the door itself decides the work, and the work decides the number, which is settled on the phone with the $89 visit and any late hour already inside it. It reads the same on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.