Smart locks
House lockouts
Re-keying
Deadbolt upgrades
Schlage
Kwikset
Car keys & fobsNon-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Get your free estimateFast, Reliable Emergency Locksmith Across Burbank
An emergency locksmith in Burbank typically gets a technician to most neighborhoods within 25 to 40 minutes, and the full price is quoted on the phone before anyone is dispatched. That quote is the price on the invoice. We work the 91501 through 91506 corridors daily, so we know how Burbank’s housing stock behaves when a lock fails. If you’re locked out of a 1940s ranch off Verdugo Avenue or dealing with a broken key in a 1950s Kwikset knob near the Warner Bros. lot, call (877) 358-5506 and we’ll walk you through it.
Why True Blue Locksmith Is Burbank’s Preferred Emergency Locksmith Company
Burbank calls us because the city’s locks are older than most people realize. A lot of the single-story stucco homes between Burbank Boulevard and the hills still carry their original mortise locksets and single-cylinder deadbolts from the 1940s and 1950s. That hardware doesn’t respond well to generic replacement parts. Noel Carrasco built True Blue Locksmith to handle exactly this kind of work, and our technicians arrive already knowing whether a Weiser knob from 1955 can be rekeyed or whether the cylinder is too worn to hold new pins.
We service all of Burbank, including the 91504 and 91506 neighborhoods east of the Golden State Freeway, the Magnolia Park district, and the older pockets around downtown near San Fernando Boulevard. Our Emergency Locksmith team responds to house lockouts, car lockouts, and commercial calls across the city. Homeowners in the hills above Glenoaks Boulevard call us for the same reason renters in the 91502 flats do: we quote honestly and we show up when we say we will.
Burbank residents have dealt with locksmith bait-pricing for years. The phone quote says one thing, the tech arrives and suddenly it’s triple. We don’t operate that way. The price Noel’s team gives you on the phone is the price on the invoice. If a lock turns out to be more involved than expected, we stop and call you with a revised number before doing the work. No silent upcharges, no arrival fees tacked on at the door.
Styles & brands we work with
Our Emergency Locksmith Services in Burbank
24/7 Emergency Lockout
Night lockouts in Burbank usually involve a warped original door on a postwar stucco home or a deadbolt that seized after a temperature swing. We respond around the clock. The technician will arrive with non-destructive entry tools first, because many of the mortise locks on Burbank’s older homes can be opened without drilling the door frame. If drilling becomes necessary, it’s only after we’ve exhausted other options and you’ve approved the approach.
House Lockout
Burbank’s housing stock is dominated by 1940s and 1950s tract homes and small duplexes, many with original mortise locksets that use obsolete cylinder formats. A modern lock does not simply drop into these doors. We carry the cylinder formats, pins, and strike hardware for these older systems so we’re not improvising on your front door at midnight. Whether you’re locked out in the 91505 area near Johnny Carson Park or further east in 91504, the process is the same: verify ownership, open the door as gently as the hardware allows, and get you inside.
Broken Key Extraction
We get a lot of broken keys in Burbank, and they usually break for one of two reasons: the key was already worn thin, or the lock cylinder had degraded pins that grabbed the key and snapped it on the turn. Extraction on a 1950s Weiser or Kwikset knob is straightforward if the cylinder still has integrity. We remove the broken piece, inspect the pins, and tell you honestly whether the cylinder is worth rekeying or has reached the end of its life. You get that assessment before we do any billable work.
Eviction Lock Change
Property managers and landlords in Burbank’s 1960s apartment stock around the 91504 corridor call us for eviction lock changes on short notice. These jobs require a documented process: we verify the legal authority to change the locks, swap or rekey the cylinders, and issue new keys on the spot. We also handle the common follow-up where the outgoing tenant returns a copy of an old key and the landlord wants the lock rekeyed again to reestablish key control.
What happens when you call
- 1
A real person answersNo phone trees — you reach a local pro.
- 2
You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
- 3
A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Burbank
We work on Schlage, Kwikset, Medeco, Abloy, and Sargent hardware, among others. That range matters in Burbank because the city spans such different property types: a 1947 ranch in the 91505 stretch needs service on a Weiser lockset, while a production office near the Disney lot might run Schlage or Sargent commercial levers. We stock pins, springs, and cylinder formats for the consumer-grade stuff and the high-security lines, so a Medeco or Abloy rekey doesn’t turn into a two-week special order. If you’re in Burbank and your hardware is one of these brands, the technician who arrives will already know how it behaves.
Common Emergency Locksmith Problems We See in Burbank Homes
- Warped doors and misaligned strike plates. Burbank’s hot, dry summers and Santa Ana winds cause wooden door and gate frames to shift. The deadbolt still works, but it no longer lines up with the strike plate, so the door won’t latch or the key won’t turn. We adjust the strike plate rather than forcing the bolt, which would only damage the original frame.
- Worn 1950s pin-and-tumbler cylinders. The original Weiser and Kwikset knobs on Burbank’s postwar homes have pins that are sixty or seventy years old. A rekey on those cylinders sometimes fails because the pins are too worn to hold a new key’s cuts. We test the cylinder before rekeying and tell you if replacement is the honest call.
- Swollen doors after winter rain. December and January rains swell the wooden doors on Burbank’s older homes, and deadbolts that turned fine in October suddenly bind. This is usually a lubrication and strike adjustment job, not a replacement. We see it every season on the stucco ranches off Magnolia Boulevard.
- Studio-wrap security resets. After a film or television production wraps in the neighborhoods near Warner Bros. or Disney, homeowners call us to rekey. Temporary crews and equipment have cycled through, keys got handed around, and the owner wants key control restored. Many of those homes still have original 1950s hardware, and we rekey what we can and tell you plainly when a lock has to go.
Pricing for Emergency Locksmith in Burbank, CA
A house lockout in Burbank typically runs $95 to $160 for non-destructive entry on a standard door during normal hours. A late-night emergency call, say between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., usually lands between $150 and $240 depending on the lock and what’s needed to open it. Broken key extraction runs $75 to $130 when it’s a straightforward pull. Rekeying a 1950s Kwikset or Weiser cylinder starts around $65 for the first lock, and rekeying original mortise cylinders runs $85 to $140 per lock because the cylinder has to be removed and the pins accessed through the mortise body. Eviction lock changes on Burbank apartments start around $45 per lock for standard cylinders, with commercial levers priced higher. Every job is quoted on the phone before we dispatch, and that quote is the price on the invoice. Call (877) 358-5506 for an exact number.
We Also Serve Cities Near Burbank
Our Emergency Locksmith in Burbank service area extends to Universal City, North Hollywood, Glendale, and Studio City. If you’re just over the city line and need a house lockout handled, call us and we’ll tell you straight whether we can get a tech to you quickly.
Serving Burbank, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Burbank area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage — if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs – Emergency Locksmith in Burbank
Most original mortise locks on Burbank’s 1940s and 1950s ranch homes can be rekeyed, provided the lock body and cylinder haven’t been damaged by decades of force. We rekey the cylinder in place or pull it for bench work when the mortise body is intact. Replacement only becomes necessary when the mortise body itself is cracked, the internal springs have failed, or the door has warped so far that the mortise latch no longer aligns with the strike plate. Call (877) 358-5506 and we’ll tell you which road you’re on before you spend a dollar.
It’s usually a repair, not a lockout. Burbank’s winter rain swells the wooden doors on older stucco homes, and a swollen door pushes the deadbolt out of alignment with the strike plate, so the key turns hard or not at all. We adjust the strike plate and lubricate the cylinder, and that usually resolves it in about twenty minutes. If the cylinder itself has failed, we’ll tell you before rekeying or replacing it.
Rekey is the right first move for most Burbank homeowners. Production crews hand keys around, and rekeying restores key control for far less than replacing functional hardware. We rekey the original Weiser and Kwikset cylinders on many 1950s homes near the studio lots, and we’ll tell you if a cylinder is too worn to hold new pins. That’s when replacement becomes the smarter call.
No. Most late-night house lockouts in the 91504 and 91505 areas are on postwar doors with standard pin-and-tumbler cylinders, and we open those with non-destructive entry. We carry the tools to release the latch without drilling the door or destroying the hardware. Drilling only enters the conversation if the lock is damaged beyond non-destructive entry or the cylinder has been tampered with, and we always get your approval first.
Yes. Our emergency calls in Burbank routinely involve broken key extraction on the same visit as a lockout, and safe opening is available as a scheduled service for stand-alone safes in homes and offices. Broken key extraction adds $75 to $130 to the job depending on the cylinder. Safe opening is quoted on the phone after we know the safe brand and lock type, and the quote is the price on the invoice. Call (877) 358-5506 for specifics.
Why Burbank’s Old Locks Need a Locksmith Who Knows Them
Burbank’s original housing stock is the throughline on this page because it’s the one thing a template locksmith page never addresses. The postwar tract homes near the studios often still carry original 1950s Weiser or Kwikset pin-and-tumbler knobs, and after film productions wrap, homeowners call to reestablish key control on those same original locksets rather than upgrade them. Some of those cylinders are rekeyable and will work fine for another decade. Others have pins so worn that a fresh rekey fails within weeks. We tell you which is which, because the honest answer on a fifty-year-old lock is sometimes “rekey” and sometimes “replace.”
We got a 2 a.m. house lockout call on a 1948 stucco ranch off Verdugo Avenue in 91501. The original mortise lock had swollen shut in the winter rain, and the homeowner’s key snapped in the cylinder. Our tech pulled the broken key with extraction tools and used non-destructive entry to release the mortise latch, then rekeyed the lock cylinder with fresh pins so her old spare keys stopped working. We adjusted the strike plate while we were there because the Santa Ana winds had already pushed the door out of alignment. That’s the kind of call we run in Burbank all year.
One thing we see too often: a different company drills a 1950s mortise lock on a warped original door when non-destructive entry would have opened it and saved the antique hardware. Or a cheap replacement deadbolt gets forced into a prewar door without checking the backset, so it never latches cleanly after the next Santa Ana wind. And the third failure: a rekey on worn 1950s Weiser or Kwikset pins is quoted as a simple swap, then the tired pin stack fails and the homeowner is told the whole lockset has to go. We don’t do any of those. We show up, we look at the actual lock, and we tell you the truth.
If you’re locked out in Burbank right now, or you’ve got a lock that’s been fighting you since the last rain, call (877) 358-5506. We’ll give you an honest quote on the phone, and that’s the number on the invoice. No games.
Written by Noel Carrasco, Owner at True Blue Locksmith, serving Burbank and the surrounding area.