Burnaby's commercial work splits three ways: strata and office towers at Metrotown, Brentwood and the Lougheed hub, independent storefronts on Hastings Street and Kingsway, and light industrial at Big Bend and on Brunette Avenue. We do the keyed side of all three, priced on the call.
Each segment calls for a different reason. A Brentwood property manager calls after a tenant dispute and wants a floor re-pinned, sometimes the whole building. A Hastings Street shop calls the morning after somebody left the payroll. A Brunette Avenue warehouse calls because a man-door cylinder seized. One truck, three conversations.
Suite cylinders, common area doors and the retail units downstairs, priced per cylinder. Strata councils can ask for the BC security worker licence number before booking.
Where Burnaby jobs land. The number given on site is the one you pay.
| Commercial job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Commercial rekey, per cylinder | $35 – $60 |
| High-security deadbolt, supplied and installed | $180 – $350 |
| Master key system, up to 10 doors | $400 – $900 |
| Standalone keypad or fob lock, per door | $350 – $700 |
| Restricted keyway changeover | $200 – $500 |
| Emergency commercial lockout | $120 – $200 |
| Panic bar or exit device install | $300 – $600 |
Ranges, not a quote. Two things move a Burnaby number: door prep that is not standard, and access, because a suite needing a building contact to release the elevator takes longer than a ground-floor unit. A lockout called in outside business hours is priced at the after-hours rate instead, and anything outside the table is quoted on the call, so nothing new lands on the invoice.
Three steps. The parking question comes on the first.
Building address, cylinder count, and what key you hold: Kwikset, Schlage, or a restricted blank stamped do not duplicate. For a tower, give us the visitor parking level so the tech comes up with the case instead of circling the parkade.
Anything past a handful of doors gets walked first. Where a master system already exists we confirm the hierarchy before re-pinning one unit, so common-area access does not break. A strata council that inherited an unknown keyway starts here.
Under thirty units is usually quoted and finished in one attendance. Larger buildings run on the manager's access schedule. Master key work leaves with a key chart, every key tried in every door.
Burnaby's tower clusters sit on SkyTrain: Metrotown and Edmonds on the Expo Line, Brentwood and Lougheed Town Centre on the Millennium Line. Rekey requests from those buildings are rarely one suite. The usual call is a floor, sometimes the whole building, after a tenant dispute, priced per cylinder. Retail in the same podium goes on the same work order.
Keyway tracks the build era. Anything from before roughly 2005 leans on KW1, the Kwikset keyway, cheap to rekey and weak on pick resistance. Post-2010 buildings on the Brentwood and Lougheed corridors more often run SC1, the Schlage C keyway, or a restricted profile. KW1 and SC1 both ride on the van; a restricted profile means ordered blanks.
One line we hold, and in a commercial building it runs between wired and keyed rather than between lobby and suite. Anything hanging off the building's access control head end stays with the contractor who commissioned it, because a reader re-flashed by an outsider is an insurance conversation nobody wants. We work the keyed side: suite cylinders, common-room and storage doors, locker and mail hardware, the commercial units downstairs, and standalone keypad locks wired to nothing. Where the elevator is gated a building contact must be present, which adds time the quote accounts for.
The Heights is Burnaby's independent retail strip, a walkable run of shops, cafes and restaurants in multi-unit buildings on Hastings Street, and the work there looks nothing like tower work. Front deadbolt, display-case cylinder, a back door onto the lane, and a landlord with three units who wants one key for all of them. Many of those buildings are old enough that door prep is not guaranteed standard, so hardware gets chosen on site.
Kingsway is the other spine, running from the Metrotown podiums through Highgate Village and past Edmonds. Lease changeovers drive most of it: a unit turns over, nobody knows how many keys are still out, and the honest answer is a cylinder change rather than a rekey.
Past the Marine Drive curve at the foot of the South Slope, Big Bend is Burnaby's warehousing flat. The Brunette Avenue corridor in Cariboo does the same job on a smaller footprint at the Coquitlam line. Both produce one list: rekeys after turnover, man-door and shipping-entry cylinders, entry upgrades, and multi-door master systems quoted after a walkthrough.
Industrial doors take weather a suite door never sees, so more of this work is replacement than re-pinning. Exterior cylinders fail from the outside in: grit and rain work past a worn keyway, the springs seize, and by the time a key needs coaxing the plug is past saving. A bolt that will not throw cleanly is a different and cheaper problem, usually a tired latch or a strike that has shifted.
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, the Burnaby Art Gallery and the offices around Deer Lake generate master-key work closer to institutional than retail: many doors, several access levels, a site review first. The grid around the park has few through-routes, so callers off Sperling Avenue should say so. Up the mountain, UniverCity's commercial district takes longer to reach than the flats, because Gaglardi Way is the only road to the summit. University buildings have their own facilities team, so what reaches us is the independent business.
That depends on where the nearest technician is when you call, and we give you the window then. Traffic is the variable rather than distance. The Lougheed and Willingdon interchange stacks up in evening rush, so we come around on Gamma or Springer, and the Metrotown bus loop clears via Nelson. SFU takes longer, because Gaglardi Way is the only road up.
No. Building-wide access control belongs to the strata or the property manager's contractor. The keyed side is ours: suite cylinders, common-room and storage doors, locker and mail hardware, and commercial doors in the podium.
Usually predictable from the build date. Pre-2005 Burnaby stock leans on KW1, the Kwikset keyway. Buildings from after 2010 on the Brentwood and Lougheed corridors more often use SC1, the Schlage C keyway, or a restricted profile. We carry both KW1 and SC1.
Rekeying is right while the hardware is sound and wrong on a worn cylinder. If the key turns only at one precise lift angle, drags on the pins, or the plug has visible play, fresh pins will not fix worn spring seating. Highgate hardware from around 2003 and Metrotown stock approaching two decades are where we see it.
Under thirty units, usually: assessed, quoted and pinned the same day, priced per cylinder. Larger buildings need the manager to line up access. Where a master system exists, the hierarchy is confirmed first so the manager's key still opens common areas.
Yes. A call at night, on a weekend or on a holiday is billed at the after-hours rate rather than the daytime one, and the figure is agreed on the call before anyone is dispatched, so no new line turns up on the invoice afterwards. Response speed does not change with the hour. Planned work suits business hours, when a manager can take the key chart hand-over. Retail is the exception, since Hastings Street and Kingsway shops want lock changes after close.
At the Lougheed end the line is North Road: Burnaby side only, address confirmed before dispatch.
Jobs that usually need their own visit.
One number covers the rest.