Keypad door lock fitting

Both get called code locks. A push-button code lock is mechanical: no batteries, one code everybody shares, and changing it means taking the lock apart. It suits a store room or a gate where a shared code is fine.

An electronic keypad lock runs on batteries and is managed from an app. That is what most people mean, and it is what we fit: codes for each person, codes that only work on certain dates, and a record of which code opened the door and when.

Permanent codes for the people who live or work there. Timed codes that start and stop on set dates, for a guest, a tenant or a builder. One-use codes for a delivery or a meter reading. You make and cancel them from your phone, and a cancelled code stops working at once.

A keypad on a front door is out in the rain all year, so it has to be a lock built for outside, not an indoor model on an outside door. The ones we fit for outside doors are rated for it.

The other worry is people watching, or worn buttons giving the code away. Many of the locks we fit accept extra digits typed before or after the real code, so neither tells anybody anything.

For a let, a guest or anyone you have not met yet, a keypad: you can send a code before they arrive, and you cannot send a fingerprint. For a household, fingerprint first with a code as the backup; see fingerprint lock fitting. Most locks we fit do both.

uPVC and composite front and back doors, the most common job. Room doors in shared houses, with a code per tenant. And gates, garages and outbuildings, where the answer depends on power and signal.