LOCK EXPERTS

AUTOMOTIVE • RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL

SAFE LOCK BLOG

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Keeping your Home Safe While on Vacation

May 15, 2017

When you go on vacation, the idea, generally, is to enjoy every minute of your time and relax as much as possible. Right? For most, vacations are planned to enjoy quality time with family or friends, to experience somewhere new, and to let the stressors of work melt into a little mental pile you can sweep up and throw away. If you spend the entirety of your vacation worrying about something awful happening to your home, you miss out on all that relaxing and enjoyment! Before you leave on your next vacation, try these tips to keep your home safe: Hire a Ghost Okay, we don’t actually mean you should hunt down a ghost to haunt your home for the duration of your vacation. However,…

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Keyless-Pad-Entry

Keyless Entry and Other Business Security

May 10, 2017

Whether you own a restaurant, a small tax filing service, or a high-tech startup, your business needs protection beyond that of a standard residential residence. A properly installed deadbolt, particularly when accompanied by a home security system, is a great way to keep your family and your home goods safe. However, most businesses call for a higher level of security than even that. If you own a business in the Panama City Beach and Destin areas, try some of these measures to increase the security on your business without hampering your employees. Rekeying Locks The first measure you can take to secure your business is one we suggest when moving into a new (or new to you) home as well: rekeying all the locks on…

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Love-Locks

History of Love Locks

May 5, 2017

Through the centuries, humanity has come up with myriad ways to show our love for one another. We have stacks upon stacks of poetry from writers through the ages striving to put down just the right combination of words to describe their love and convey the depth of their emotions. There are lengthy novels all about the extraordinary love story between two seemingly ordinary individuals. There are bigger than life sized paintings of beautiful women and handsome men captured forever with canvas and oil paints to create an enduring testament to a person’s beauty. And, of course, that’s not all. The methods to convey feelings of love are as seemingly endless as the depth of the feeling itself. At Destin Locksmithing, as you can probably…

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Hairpin-lock-pick

Hairpin Lock Picking – Is it Possible?

April 30, 2017

How many movies, spy or otherwise, have you seen a femme fatale pull a hairpin from her intricate updo to open the door to a restricted area? This movie trope feels like it’s so overdone and, with the technology available today, can make a movie feel outdated if it’s not done well. But that does beg the question: how much of that is movie hype and how much of that is fiction? Read on to learn more about whether picking a lock with a bobby pin is actually possible and why it works the way it does. What’s Your Lock? The first thing we need to clarify is that yes, picking a lock with a hairpin is possible – but only with some locks. For…

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Duplicate

Debunking The “Do Not Duplicate” Myth

April 25, 2017

In your lifetime, you’ve probably seen at least one key stamped “Do Not Duplicate” or “No Replications.” They are most prevalent for key sets handed out by property managers or rental companies for apartments or other rental properties. And, unfortunately for renters, those companies like to charge an arm and a leg to replace a misplaced key, even if it was something accidental like your toddler flushing it down the toilet. So, what happens when an important key gets flushed or lost and you’re down to one? It’s understandable that you don’t want to eat the rental company’s high fee for an accident. Fortunately, there is another option: calling your local locksmith. Why do they say “Do Not Duplicate?” Generally speaking, that foreboding “Do Not…

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Keyless-Entry

Keyless Entry Types

April 20, 2017

In our Destin Locksmithing blogs, we’ve mentioned a time or two all the myriad uses for keyless entry, as well as the benefits they can bring to your home, vacation rental, or business. As a quick refresher, keyless entry locks are, generally speaking, a replacement for both knob and deadbolt (or just the deadbolt) and require a passcode or a specific series of button pushing to be permitted entry. The perk here is that you eliminate the need for keys or swipeable security cards to open the lock. They add additional security to any door on which they are installed. And, for those who own a vacation rental property or business here in Destin or Panama City Beach, keyless entry systems are a great way…

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Changing-Car-Locks

Changing Car Locks

April 15, 2017

If you’re a homeowner, you probably know the value of having your home’s locks rekeyed by a professional locksmith before you move in. If you purchased a previously-owned home, there’s no way of knowing how many relatives or family friends were given keys to the place you now live, so rekeying the locks is an easy fix. Even if it’s a brand new home, you don’t know how many contractors or construction workers ended up with a key, so, again, rekeying the locks is a quick and easy fix to potential break-in worries that doesn’t change the hardware on your doors. But what do you do when someone else has the keys to your car? Most people don’t think about rekeying the locks on their…

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Home-Security

Are Home Security Cameras Worth It?

April 10, 2017

If you run a quick internet search, you can probably find myriad editorial articles in which homeowners expound on why home security systems are or are not worth the price you pay. With so many opinions, it can be hard to wade through to the facts. So, before you take the word of the first search result you find, see how these statistics weigh in to help you decide whether installing a home security system with cameras in your Panama City Beach home is worth it. Visual Deterrents First and foremost, home security cameras, and home security systems in general, are a great visual deterrent to thieves. According to a study conducted by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, roughly one third of burglars…

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Hire-Locksmith

Why Hire a Locksmith?

April 5, 2017

Even after buying that shiny new lockpicking kit off the internet – which you may want to avoid because it’s only questionably legal in most states – to try to crack open that old safe you have. It may be fun to bring out your inner lockpicking-spy, but this isn’t the movies and most of us lack the skills necessary to open a door with lock picks, let alone something harder to crack, like that safe we mentioned. Whether it’s something as simple as having your home’s locks rekeyed or something as complex as getting into a safe, hiring a professional locksmith is the smarter option. Here’s why: They’re Trained Professional locksmiths are well-trained and almost always be licensed. The caveat to licensing is that…

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Car-BreakIns

Preventing Car Break-Ins

March 31, 2017

It can happen any time. Maybe you need to just pop into the post office to drop off a package. The postage is already paid, printed, and the box sealed, so you’re in the building for maybe three minutes, tops. No matter how quickly you just “pop into the store real fast,” that can still be more than enough time for a burglar to be in and out of your car and long gone with your valuables (or the car itself) before you even notice your car has been broken into. No one wants to be forced to deal with the hassle of insurance claims, police reports, car repairs, or replacing stolen identification or documents. At Destin Locksmithing, we want to help you keep your…

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