How often should you lubricate your door locks?

Why bother

A dry lock seizes, usually with you on the wrong side of it. A thorough-tier job. Skippable when life's busy, worth it when it isn't.

What the job involves

1. Lay a rag or some paper under the lock to catch the dust, then puff a small amount of dry lubricant straight into the keyway. Powdered graphite or a PTFE (Teflon) dry lube. Not WD-40, not the cooking oil, nothing wet.
2. Slide the key in, work it in and out, and turn it both ways a few times. That walks the lubricant through the pins and round the cylinder where it actually does the work.
3. Throw the deadbolt or work the latch a dozen times so the bolt mechanism gets a coat too. If it still drags, a touch more, no flood.
4. Wipe off whatever sat on the outside and check the key goes in and turns clean. The excess only ends up as a gray smudge on your thumb otherwise.

Do it yourself, or pay someone?

Yourself, easily. A tube of graphite or a can of dry PTFE lube is a few dollars, no tools, a couple of minutes a lock. The only time a pro gets a look-in is once a lock has already seized or a key has snapped, and a locksmith for that runs roughly $100 to $350 with the service call. The whole point of the two-minute job is never making that call.

What skipping it costs

$75 to $350 is what a neglected lock costs once it stops being a lock. A dry cylinder collects grit and corrodes from damp, salt air, and the freeze-thaw, until the key turns hard, then snaps off in the keyway, then won't budge at all. The bill is a locksmith repair on a jammed lock, around $50 to $200, or a full swap at $75 to $200 a lock and up to about $350 for the better hardware, plus a $100 to $200 service call on top. Pick a bad night or a weekend and there's another $150 to $250 emergency premium for the privilege. A pinch of graphite once a year is the cheap end of that, by a wide margin.

Signs it's overdue

• The key is harder to push in than it used to be, or needs a jiggle to seat. That is the cylinder telling you it has had enough.
• The key takes extra force to turn, or there's grinding, squeaking, or clicking as it goes round.
• The deadbolt or latch sticks, drags, or won't slide home and back as smoothly as it once did.

When to start thinking about it

No notice needed, really. Grumpty mentions it the day it comes due and that's that. Mark it done and Grumpty sets the next one, every 12 months, so you can go back to forgetting it exists.

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