Smart lock fitting for uPVC and composite doors

You shut the door, lift the handle, and hooks, rollers or bolts come out along the edge of the door into the frame. Turning the key then stops the handle going back down. That set of bolts is the multipoint, and it is what actually holds the door shut; see what actually holds your door shut.

A smart lock on this door does not replace the multipoint. It replaces the handles, the cylinder, or both, and works the bolts that are already there.

A handle-style smart lock. Both handles come off and the lock's handles go on, with the keypad, fingerprint reader and card reader built into the outside one. This is the neatest result and the most common on these doors. Our front and back door smart lock is this kind, slim enough for the narrow frame of a uPVC door.

A lock that turns the cylinder. It sits on the inside of the door and turns the key for you, so the outside does not change. Nuki and Yale's Linus work this way, and so does the Conexis in its own way; see Yale smart lock fitting.

The door's thickness, because the lock's spindle and fixing bolts have to suit it, and composite doors are usually thicker than uPVC. The distance between the handle spindle and the cylinder, which is often 92 mm on these doors but not always. How far the mechanism sits from the edge of the door. And whether the existing handle holes will line up with the new lock, or be covered by it.

A photo of the door edge with the door open, and one of the handle from each side, tells us most of this before we visit.

If the handle is hard to lift, or the key needs forcing, the gearbox inside the door is worn or the door has dropped on its hinges. A smart lock will not fix that, and fitted on top of it the lock is the part that fails first.

We adjust the hinges and keeps where that is enough, or replace the gearbox, and price it separately so you can decide. If the door is past saving, we say so.

Back doors are usually the same kind of door with the same mechanism, so the same lock goes on both. One app then runs both doors, and a code given to a cleaner or a dog walker can be set for whichever door they use.