Alameda neighborhood · 24/7
Fernside: the neighborhood this shop is named after, on the east shore where the bridge decides the minute
The east side of the island facing the estuary, laid out in the twenties and thirties: stucco and shingle houses on curving streets, deep back yards, garages at the end of the driveway, and the Fruitvale bridge at the top of the neighborhood. Sixteen minutes from the van.
~16 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
This is the neighborhood the shop takes its name from, so the arrival figure here gets explained rather than asserted. Sixteen minutes is not a measure of distance. The van works from the Park Street end, and a run to Fernside goes along the shore roads with the Fruitvale crossing at the far end of it, which is why this reads sixteen while the West End, no farther away as the crow flies, reads twenty-two. Every minute on this site is counted that way: from where the van is standing, over the crossing it will really use, with a raised span treated as normal traffic rather than an excuse. If the number is going to be longer tonight, you hear the longer number.
The housing here is mostly one household per front door, which makes it the quiet half of the island's work, with one recurring exception. A great many of these lots gained a room over the garage or a small unit at the back at some point, let separately or lived in by a family member, and that is where the ownership question shows up in miniature. The person living in the back unit arranges their own lockout at $132 to $242 and shows identification at the door. Changing what is fitted to the main house, or to a gate both households pass through, is the owner's decision. Neither of those is complicated. It is just worth settling in a two-minute phone call rather than at the end of a driveway.
After a purchase the useful visit is a count and a rekey. Front, kitchen, the door in from the garage, the garage side door, the gate at the driveway, and the back unit if there is one: repinning is $30 to $47 per cylinder with everything after the first at the low end. That retires the keys handed out over the years to a gardener, a contractor, a neighbor who watered the plants, and nobody has to go looking for them. Where a household runs a sitter, a dog walker or teenagers who lose keys twice a term, a smart lock at $192 to $479 goes on the door the family actually uses, usually the one in from the driveway, and the front keeps a mechanical key underneath everything.
The rest is straightforward. A lock that has worn past pinning is replaced at $127 to $332 per door, and the technician will say plainly which of your doors needs that and which needs a strike moved an eighth of an inch. Doors on this side take weather off the water, so a bolt that turned easily in September and fights in February is usually the leaf taking up moisture rather than the lock failing. Calls are answered around the clock, with $50 inside the figure between eight in the evening and midnight and $88 between midnight and seven, and the work carries ninety days.
Say which door stopped you: the front, the door in from the garage, the gate at the driveway, or a unit at the back of the lot. If there is a separate unit on the property, say whether you live in it or own the place, since that decides who can approve work on the shared parts. A cross street helps after dark on the curving blocks.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Fernside
Why is Fernside sixteen minutes when the West End is twenty-two? The island is not that big.+
Because the run is not measured across the island, it is measured through the crossing the van will use and along the roads that get it there. Fernside sits near the Fruitvale bridge on the east shore and the West End is at the far end of the island past everything else. Both figures are honest averages and both are quoted before you decide to wait.
We rent the studio above the garage. Can we have our own lock changed?+
The lock on the door you live behind is arranged with the owner, and the practical route is a short written message from them. A lockout on that same door is yours to call in at $132 to $242, with identification shown at the door. We ask which of the two it is on the phone so nobody drives out on a job that cannot be started.
The back door sticks all winter and turns fine in summer.+
That is the door rather than the lock. Wood on this side of the island takes up moisture off the water, the leaf grows a fraction, and the bolt stops meeting the middle of its keeper. Easing the edge and moving the strike fixes it inside a normal visit. Fitting a new lock would leave you with the same February in a new cylinder.
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.