Okay, so about a month ago Xan and I were going to my parent’s house for the weekend, which is 4 hours away. He left work a couple hours early and we hit the road in time to have dinner with my parents. It was our first trip back since we moved to Asheville so we were super excited about it. Fast forward to about 45 minutes in and Xan asks me “is the stove off?” It was actually a joke because he’s so paranoid about leaving the stove on he’s always double and triple checking it and I give him a hard time for it. Buuuuuut, I actually had left the stove on myself earlier in the week (I was home the whole time so nothing to really worry about) because of that and the fact that I’d made a grilled sandwich for lunch and couldn’t actually remember turning off the stove I was the paranoid one this time!! But, no biggie, we’d just call the friends in town that we made copies of our key for. Wellll, come to find out we’d made the copies of the key but never actually given them to our friends. We’d only given one to Xan’s parents who live an hour away. Needless to say I was giving myself some major eye rolls. Since I really couldn’t remember turning it off we decided we’d feel better all weekend if we made sure. So we turned around, added an hour and a half to the drive and of course there went our dinner plans and early arrival. I mean all in all it wasn’t that big of a deal, but we were annoyed at ourselves to no end. Up to that point we’d been talking casually about getting a keypad lock and then this happened and it really sealed the deal for us.
We’d been talking about it because needed to replace the lock on our back door. We didn’t get a key for in when we moved in so we could only lock/unlock it from the inside. And, it was installed improperly so it was really hard to use. The latch didn’t align with the hole in the doorframe and we usually had to stick something in between the door and the frame to lift the latch a little to get it in the hole. Yeah, pretty dumb, I know. But, I wasn’t sure I’d like the look of a keypad lock and was a little skeptical of how well it would work. But, we have some friends who have one and they love their keypad lock and it looks really good. It’s really not that much larger than a regular lock which was good to see.
Perks of a Keyless Entry Door
Based on how much they like it and our little stove incident we were pretty much sold. I really like that we can essentially let anyone into our house at anytime. Whether it’s because someone leaves the stove on 🙄, a friend needs to drop something off or pick something up, or maybe you AirBnB, or you want to go on a run and don’t want the hassle of dealing with your keys. It works so well for any of those situations. You can set multiple codes so each person could have their own. And, you can reset it whenever you’d like. So if you’re AirBnbing you could set it new for each guest and then they can get in whenever they’d like. There’s a master code so you’re the only one who can change it and I recommend making the master code different than your code(s) for entry because I think people could accidentally reset the code which would be problematic.
The Keypad Lock, Installation, and Tips
The cost is really reasonable. We got this model in the oil rubbed bronze, which matches the other hardware in our house right now, and it was only $55! Installation was pretty easy, the only tool you may not have on hand is a 1” spade bit (or whatever size the directions on your lock call for). We borrowed it from Xan’s dad but they’re also an inexpensive item to add to your collection. The only note about installation if you get this same model is that the instructions actually tell you to install the plate on the back of the door backward. You want the two notches on top and the one on the bottom to be sticking out from the door not flush against it. We also had to change our door hole a little so the latch could move easily in and out, but most of you won’t have that problem.
As you can see there were so many reasons that a keypad lock was right for us, and maybe it is for you too!
