Well, the end of another very busy week. Not completely the end of course, as I work Saturday and Sundays and stay on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's been very busy though. Mostly 14-15 hour days. I didn't get home before 9pm once this week.
It was a typically varied and interesting week, with lots of mortice (chubb type) and cylinder locks (yale type) locks fitted. I had quite a few locks to upgrade to BS3621 insurance standard. I sometimes find these more time consuming than fitting one from scratch. It's quite rewarding though, to know you've improved the security on someones house. Worth mentioning here, that we now fit BS3621 2004 (as apposed to BS3621 1998) as standard on all external mortice locks.
I also had a couple of digi locks (push button locks) and 6 x Upvc multipoint locking mechanisms to fit.
I fitted upvc door lock mechanisms in Kingstanding and Great Barr in Birmingham, Water Orton, Sutton Coldfield and Solihull. Three of those were in the dark, which I must say is one of the worst parts of the winter. Working in the dark. Luckily I've bought one of those lamps which you wear on a band round your head. It looks absolutely ridiculous, but is worth its weight in gold!
My favourite job this week though was at a cafe in Kingstanding, Birmingham. I had taken a friend of mine (an ex-locksmith, now retired) for a breakfast and they had a bullet lock stuck in the shutter out the back. Someone had put it in upside down and it wouldn't work with the key. We were offered a free breakfast each if we could remove it. A couple of minutes later I had it removed, it still worked and we had a nice big breakfast each! It was a really good breakfast too! When I remember the name of the cafe, I'll put it on this blog!
