ACE LOCKSMITH SVC

Called yesterday to see if they could do it. They said "Yes", and gave me a price of $60 per key. I said I would be in the next day (today/ Wednesday). Showed up this morning around 11 am, only to find that the shop was closed Wednesday through Friday for Thanksgiving. That's understandable that they would be closed. But, I would have appreciated some notice that they were not going to be open for business the rest of the week. Oh, well.

It seemed like calling on a company with an A rating on Angie's List, one that we had been very pleased with on a job last year, and that was located just a few miles from our house would work well. But this time it did not. The knob inside our front door came off. I phoned Ace and they came out the next day, a Tuesday. The handle was examined and was told it could not be repaired, that the entire handle set would need to be replaced. That was likely true as when it was last repaired a few years ago by a different company, that person said to not expect it to last much longer. The only difficulty was that this was the original handle set, installed when the house was built in 1983. The technician said it would likely be difficult to find an exact match, but he would see what is available and phone me the next day. He did take a photo of the handle set. After he left, I looked on the Schlage website to see what was available. No perfect match but Schlage did feature one that was very similar in shape in almost the same color, so I felt like things would be OK. But Wednesday went by with no call from Ace, as did Thursday, as did Friday morning. Thinking maybe they had called someone else by mistake and left a recording on someone else's machine, I called them Friday afternoon. Without my asking, I was told "Oh, he has been meaning to call you." The person asked me to measure the handle set, saying "he should have done that while he was there." She said they would continue looking and let me know what they find. I went to Lowe's over the weekend for another matter. While there I looked at their locks. They had the one I saw on the Schlage website. It looked perfectly suitable, and the measurements seemed to me like it would fit our door. I was prepared to tell that to Ace when they called -- but no one ever did. By the time Thursday came, I gave up on Ace. I went back to Lowe's, bought the lock, came back home and called a locksmith (also with an A rating on Angie's List) that was located in a different town and that I had never used before. Without my requesting any rush service, that company sent a technician out and had the job finished in just under two and a half hours from my call. I am quite puzzled why Ace was not interested in pursuing my job. It is now late Friday afternoon, and I have still not heard back from them. My front door was able to stay closed and locked by the deadbolt, but they were aware it was left not operable. I tried to think if I might have said or done something to make them not want to return but nothing at all comes to mind. We only discussed the lock and I did not challenge the decision to replace the handle set. Everything on the initial visit seemed to be pleasant. He remembered having done work at our house before, and that experience went well. All I know is they have my correct phone number and address, they promised twice to look for a replacement and contact me, but just left me with a non-functioning front door for a week and a half.

I phoned John at 9:30 about non-emergency service that was needed at our house. He came out at 12:10 (we live fairly close to his shop) and handled both matters quickly. He made a new key for a locked container where the original key had been lost. He also opened the deadbolt mechanism on our front door and lubricated inside. Both items work great now. I had never used Ace in the past but will definitely do so in the future.

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I was missing a key I had hidden in the back yard. Ace came out within a couple of hours and re-keyed every lock in my house so that the same key could be used for all locks. He gave me three new keys. I couldn't be happier with the service, cost, and response from this Mom and Pop shop.