New Home Security First Day | What to Do in Order

You've signed the paperwork, picked up the keys, and the removal van is either already outside or an hour away. The last thing on your mind is locks. That's exactly when it should be on your mind.

The previous owners handed over two or three keys. Fine. But how many keys exist for that lock? The estate agent has one. The cleaner they used probably has one. The neighbour who watered the plants. The emergency spare under the flowerpot that the person before them left and never told anyone about. You don't know, and you can't know. That's the problem.

This guide is for the first hour, or the first day if you're doing it properly. Work through it in order. Some of it you can do yourself. Some of it you'll want a locksmith for. I'll tell you which is which.

Start Here: The Front Door

The front door is almost certainly a uPVC or composite door with a multipoint locking system. The cylinder, the barrel that your key goes into, is the weak point.

First thing to do: look at the cylinder. Pull the key out and have a look at how much of the barrel is exposed on the outside face of the door. If more than about 3mm of the cylinder protrudes beyond the metal plate, it's vulnerable to snapping. A burglar gets a pair of pliers or a purpose-made tool on that protruding section, snaps it off, and they're inside in under a minute without making much noise at all.

If you're in a house in Walton, Oulton, or on the Christchurch estate, this is relevant to you. Stone isn't immune to the kind of break-ins that hit Stafford or Stoke, and anti-snap attacks are the method of choice because they're fast and they work on standard cylinders.

What to replace it with

A TS007 3-star rated cylinder. That's the British Standard that actually means something. Brands worth buying: Ultion (the 3-star version), Avocet ABS, ERA Fortress. All three will resist snapping, picking, bumping, and drilling to a level that defeats most opportunists and a fair proportion of more determined attempts.

Expect to pay between £60 and £120 for a decent cylinder fitted. If someone quotes you £25 fitted, they're fitting a cylinder that doesn't meet TS007 and probably won't last the year. The Ultion 3-star is around £70 to £90 for the cylinder alone at trade, which gives you a sense of what a realistic total cost looks like.

Take the old cylinder with you to the locksmith or measure it yourself: close the door, measure from the centre of the cam (the screw hole in the middle of the cylinder) to the outside edge, then from the centre to the inside edge. That's your size. A 35/45 or 40/40 fits most standard uPVC doors.

While you're at the front door, check the letterbox. A lot of people don't realise you can reach through a standard letterbox with a tool and hook keys off an internal key hook, or reach the door handle. A letterbox cowl or cage, fitted to the inside of the door, costs under £20 and takes ten minutes with a screwdriver.

The Back Door

Often the most neglected. Back doors tend to be out of sight, screened by fencing, and that's precisely why they're targeted.

If it's a uPVC door, same cylinder check as the front. Same replacement recommendation.

If it's an older wooden door, you're looking for a BS3621 deadlock, a British Standard mortice deadlock, as a minimum. It needs to have at least five levers. Look on the faceplate, the metal strip on the edge of the door. If it says BS3621, you're meeting most insurers' requirements. If it's a two-lever mortice lock or an old night latch without a deadlock, change it. Your insurer almost certainly requires a five-lever mortice or a BS3621-compliant multipoint system on a back door. Get that wrong and you might find your contents claim refused.

Check the door frame too. A weak frame makes a strong lock nearly pointless. Look for signs of previous forced entry: splintered wood around the lock, misaligned striker plate, gaps in the frame. If the frame looks rough, a locksmith can fit a longer striker plate with longer screws into the stud work behind, which makes a significant difference to how much force the door can take.

Keys You Don't Know About

Before you move a single box inside, you need to think about existing keys.

Rekeying is an option for some lock types, where a locksmith resets the lock tumblers to a new key pattern without replacing the whole unit. It's cheaper than a full lock swap. But most uPVC multipoint cylinders can't be rekeyed economically, so in practice you're usually replacing the cylinder.

Collect every key you've been given by the sellers, the estate agent, and anyone else. Count them. Then change the lock anyway, because you still don't know how many copies were cut over the years. A new cylinder is cheap certainty.

The Garage

This is the one people forget most consistently.

If the garage has an up-and-over door or a roller door with an electric motor, the remote is handed over with the keys and everyone moves on. But the internal door from the garage into the house, if there is one, is frequently fitted with a cheaper lock than the front door. Sometimes just a Yale-type night latch. Sometimes nothing compliant with BS3621 at all.

That internal door matters enormously. A burglar who gets into the garage via the up-and-over (and remote cloners exist, particularly for older systems) is then in a sheltered, enclosed space with all the time in the world to work on your internal door. Change the cylinder or the mortice lock on that internal door to the same standard as your front door.

If the garage is detached and used for storage or a vehicle, check the padlock on any side access door. Anything less than a Sold Secure Silver rated padlock on a hardened steel hasp is a low priority for a determined thief, but it's still a deterrent. A closed-shackle padlock from Mul-T-Lock or Squire's SS65CS is the right level for a detached garage. Open-shackle padlocks, even big heavy ones, can be cut with a decent pair of bolt croppers in seconds.

The Side Gate

Most side gates in Stone are timber, and most of them have a basic barrel bolt or a thumb-turn latch that can be reached over the top by anyone over about five foot six.

The side gate is access to the rear of the property. Rear of the property is where burglars prefer to work because it's not overlooked from the street. Don't make it easy.

Fit a lockable gate latch rather than a thumb-turn if the gate can be reached over. Garrison and Lockey both make decent options. A padlock on a hasp works but only if the hasp itself is bolted through the gate post with coach bolts and a back plate, not just screwed into soft timber. Screws pull out. Bolts don't.

If the gate is tall enough that it can't be reached over, make sure it at least has a drop bolt at the bottom in addition to the latch at the top. Two fixing points make it dramatically harder to kick in.

Window Locks

Check every window. Not just on the ground floor, though start there.

On uPVC windows, the locking mechanism is built into the handle. Most handles have a key-locking position. Find the keys. If they're missing, a locksmith can replace the handle with a new locking handle for around £15 to £30 per window. They're not high-security items in themselves, but they slow someone down and they satisfy most insurers.

The specific windows to check on a first-day walk-round:

• Ground floor at front and rear, obvious.
• Side return windows, often a sash or small casement, frequently forgotten because they face the neighbour's fence.
• First floor windows over a flat roof or bay window. Easy to access from outside.
• Any window adjacent to a drainpipe. Drainpipes get climbed.
• The bathroom window, which is often left unlocked on the assumption it's too small. Sometimes it isn't.

On timber sash windows, check whether the existing sash stops or Brighton fasteners are in place and functional. Sash windows without secondary locks can be lifted open silently. Sash stops are cheap, under £10, and are fitted in minutes with a drill.

The Alarm, or Lack of One

You may have taken over a house with an alarm system already fitted. The previous owners should have given you the user codes and the master engineer code. If they haven't, you're locked out of the system, which means you either can't arm it or can't change the codes, both of which are problems.

An alarm engineer can usually reset a system if you have proof of ownership, though it depends on the panel brand and vintage. For a grade C or D domestic system from Pyronix, Texecom, or Honeywell, budget £80 to £150 for an engineer visit to reset and re-programme.

If the property has no alarm at all, day one isn't necessarily the moment to fix that. Get the locks right first. An alarm doesn't stop a break-in, it responds to one. A good cylinder stops the break-in from happening. Spend the first day on physical security, then think about detection and response separately.

Outbuildings and Garden Stores

If the property has a garden shed or workshop, check what's in it. People leave tools that become entry tools. A crow bar, a spade, a ladder, all of which can be used on your own house by someone who finds them first. Lock the shed. Move the ladder inside if you can, or chain it to a fixed point if you can't.

A timber shed padlock hasp is usually 30mm screws into soft wood. That's not security, it's aesthetics. Bolt it through with carriage bolts, fit a closed-shackle padlock, and at minimum make it slower to get into than the neighbour's shed.

The Smart Lock and Key Safe Question

New homeowners sometimes want to fit a smart lock or a key safe on day one, either to manage tradesperson access during the move or because they're planning to rent the property. Both can be fine, but both need doing properly.

Key safes: get a Supra C500, a Master Lock 5401, or a Sentinel from Police CPI. Not a £15 unit from a DIY shed. The mounting screws matter as much as the combination mechanism. Fit it to masonry with masonry fixings, not to a timber fence post. I've written about this separately if key safes for rental or carer access is your specific situation.

Smart locks: Ultion and Yale both make retrofit smart cylinders that replace your existing barrel without changing the door hardware. They're worth considering, but check they meet TS007 3-star before you buy. Not all smart cylinders do. A lock that can be opened from your phone is no use if it snaps off under a pair of pliers.

What Experienced Landlords Do Differently

If you've bought the property as a rental, either in Barlaston, Yarnfield, or somewhere in the ST15 postcode, there's a different priority order.

Change all the locks before the first tenant goes in, even if you've changed them since the last tenant. The inventory handover is the right moment. Fit cylinders with restricted key profiles, Mul-T-Lock Interactive or Ultion's patented key variants, which can't be copied in a standard key-cutting machine. Handing over three keys at the start of a tenancy is far simpler when you know exactly three copies exist and no more can be made without your authorisation.

Fit a door viewer. Cheap, quick, and reduces the number of calls from tenants who don't know who's at the door.

If you're managing multiple properties, a master key system lets you open any of your properties with a single key while tenants have individual keys that only open their own. It's not cheap to set up, but once it's running it saves a lot of time and lost-key drama.

The Order, Summarised

If you can only do some of this on day one, here's the priority sequence:

1. Replace the front door cylinder with a TS007 3-star rated unit.
2. Replace the back door cylinder or verify the mortice lock is BS3621 compliant.
3. Check and fit the letterbox cage.
4. Check the internal garage door lock and upgrade if it's below standard.
5. Check side gate access and fit a lockable latch or padlock properly.
6. Walk every ground floor window and check the locking handles are functional and keyed.
7. Check first floor windows over flat roofs or near drainpipes.
8. Secure garden tools and ladders in the outbuilding, then lock the outbuilding properly.
9. Get alarm codes from the previous owners or arrange an engineer reset if needed.

That's a morning's work if you're organised, or an afternoon if the removal van turns up late. Most of it is physical inspection. The lock changes themselves take twenty to forty minutes by a locksmith, often less.

Fort Secure covers Stone and the surrounding ST postcodes, Eccleshall, Stafford, Trentham, Meir Heath, across to Stoke-on-Trent. If you need cylinders changed on moving day, call early and I'll do my best to get there within thirty minutes. Pricing is given honestly on the phone before I come out. No pressure on the day, just the work that actually needs doing.