In a Burnaby tower, what stands between you and your car is a strata parkade gate, and that belongs to the building. In a house or a townhome you have a real garage door, opener and garage lock. That part is ours, from Capitol Hill to Government Road.
Three things go wrong: the door binds, the opener quits, or the side door sits on a lock anyone could get past. What we do not touch is the strata parkade gate.
Most garage door pages are written for a city of driveways. Burnaby is only half that city. Around Metrotown, Brentwood and the Lougheed hub, people park behind a shared parkade gate on a building fob, with no private garage door in the picture. On Capitol Hill, along Government Road, across the South Slope and on the old grids in Burnaby Heights and Willingdon Heights, nearly every lot has one. So the first question is which Burnaby you are calling from.
The gate, its motor, the fob that opens it, the ramp intercom and the lobby keypad are building infrastructure. They belong to the strata and its access-control contractor. A locksmith who says yes to a parkade gate is turning a strata problem into your problem.
What is yours starts at your own door: the suite deadbolt, the patio hardware, the mailbox, and the cylinder or padlock on your storage locker and parking-stall cage. A lost locker key in a Metrotown tower is an ordinary weekday call. Give us the suite number and the visitor stall level so the tech reaches the right elevator bank.
A complex may have a shared overhead gate at its entrance, strata scope again, but each unit has its own garage with its own man door, and that one is ours. It is also the cylinder people forget to mention. A townhome rekey here is rarely a single lock: front entry, patio slider or rear deadbolt, then the garage side door. Two to three cylinders per unit, quoted together on one visit.
The 1920s to 1950s houses between Hastings Street and Willingdon Avenue usually have a detached garage at the back of the lot, opening onto the lane. It is normally the weakest lock on the property and the one nobody looks at: a rim latch, a hasp with a hardware-store padlock, or a man door on a passage knob and no deadbolt. It sits out of sight of the street too, which is what somebody working a lane wants.
When a laneway house replaces that garage, the new build arrives on a builder's key handed round every trade for months. Rekey on possession day, and again after any renovation where contractors held a back-door key.
Government Road runs along the lower flanks of Burnaby Mountain with long driveways and houses carrying five or more exterior entries once you count the front, the rear, the garage man door and a suite. Buckingham Heights, above the south side of Deer Lake, is much the same. Capitol Hill adds the climb: narrow steep upper streets, generous lots, and a front door often not visible from the road. Give a street address rather than a landmark, and say whether the garage is down a side drive or behind a gate. The window we give you on the call allows extra time for the hill.
Most reports of a broken garage lock here turn out to be a frame that moved: settlement under the pre-war Heights houses, hillside creep on the South Slope, slow ground movement in older Edmonds homes. If the key turns but the bolt will not seat, that is a worn latch or a strike out of line, and a new cylinder fixes nothing. If the key works only at one lift angle or the plug has play, the cylinder is worn past reliable pinning and another rekey will not hold. Door repair and a lock change are separate quotes.
It comes down to the keyway. Burnaby stock built before roughly 2005 is disproportionately pinned to Kwikset KW1, cheap to rekey and easy to match. Townhomes and buildings on the Lougheed and Brentwood corridors from 2010 onward more often run the Schlage C keyway, and some carry a restricted keyway the developer specified that cannot be copied at a kiosk. We carry SC1 and KW1 and cut on the van. Around Deer Lake and Buckingham Heights the man door often still wears its original 1970s Weslock or Arrow cylinder, and we stock period-compatible replacements. See lock change and rekey for pricing.
Gaglardi Way is the only practical road up, so the summit takes longer to reach than the flats, more so on a weekday afternoon. The campus runs its own facilities team, so the work up there is privately owned UniverCity units and student rentals on the roads off Gaglardi. Wooden doors take on water at that elevation, and one that shut cleanly in August often needs its strike moved by February.
| Job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Remote or keypad, supplied and programmed | $40–$140 |
| Sensor realignment or minor opener adjustment | $90–$200 |
| Deadbolt fitted to a garage side door | $120–$280 |
| Overhead T-handle or slide lock | $110–$260 |
| Roller, hinge or track repair (minor) | $120–$320 |
| Opener repair (gears, limit switch, logic board) | $140–$360 |
| Opener replacement, parts and labour | $300–$650 |
Parts and labour on the jobs we see most. A snapped torsion spring, cable drums or a full panel swap is quoted after somebody looks at the door, and is often a door company's job.
Tell us the address and what the door is doing. If you are in a strata, say so: that decides whether the fault is yours or the building's.
Canada Way between Willingdon and Edmonds queues through the afternoon, and the Lougheed Highway interchange at Willingdon clogs at evening rush. We approach around both.
We finish the work, reprogram remotes and rekey cylinders so old keys are dead, then cycle the door open, closed and locked. The tech who took your call does the job.
The three garage jobs we get called out for most, each with its own page for detail and pricing.
Same truck, same licensed tech: suite doors, strata rekeys, car keys and safes. All Burnaby service areas.