Is My Lock Broken Or Just Stuck? Three Tests
Most locks people think are broken are not. Roughly speaking: if it works with the door open, the fault is the door. If a spare key fixes it, the fault is the key. If it is stiff on both keys with the door open, the cylinder needs cleaning. Only wobble, pitting and shearing mean the hardware itself is finished.
This is the page to start on if you are not sure which of the others applies to you.
We’ll say the bit that costs us money up front: the majority of “broken lock” calls we get are not broken locks. They are doors that have moved, keys that have worn out, or cylinders that have not been cleaned since the house was built. Replacing the lock in those cases fixes nothing, and it is the most common way people waste money on this trade.
Three tests, about two minutes
Do them in this order. Each one rules out a whole category.
| Test | If yes | If no |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Does it work with the door open? | The lock is fine — go to the frame | The fault is inside the lock, go to test 2 |
| 2. Does an unused spare key work? | The key is worn, get one cut to code | Go to test 3 |
| 3. Is there wobble or pitting? | Hardware is worn out — replace | Cylinder needs cleaning, not replacing |
Test 1: open the door and try it
Throw the bolt into fresh air. If it moves cleanly, everything inside the lock is healthy and your problem is alignment — the bolt is catching the strike when the door is shut.
That is the single most common fault in Kenner, because the ground here is moving under the slab and frames go out of square. Full walk-through in why won’t my door latch properly and why won’t my deadbolt turn.
Test 2: try the spare
The one in the drawer that never gets used. Brass wears, steel pins do not, and a key copied from a copy inherits every bit of wear plus its own.
If the spare works, you needed a five dollar key, not a locksmith. More in why is my key hard to remove.
Test 3: look and feel
Grab the handle and the escutcheon. Does the whole assembly rock? Does the cylinder turn a few degrees before anything happens? Is the finish pitted or chalky?
If yes, this is the one case where the answer genuinely is new hardware. Details in why does my door lock feel loose.
If it is solid and just gritty, it wants cleaning and lubricating. Twenty minutes, dry graphite or PTFE, and not WD-40.
The symptoms that mean stop immediately
- Key snapped in the cylinder. Do not push it further in. Broken key extraction.
- Key spins freely with no resistance. Tailpiece sheared. Key turns but the door won’t open.
- Seized solid after flooding. Silt in the cylinder. Sometimes recoverable, often not.
- Damage from a forced entry attempt. Replace, and reinforce the frame while you are at it.
Why Kenner locks look broken more often than they are
Three things, and they stack.
The ground. This metro sinks somewhere between 0.2 and 0.8 inches a year, unevenly. Frames rack, bolts bind, keys get used as levers.
The air. Salt off the lake corrodes cylinder internals where nobody can see it, and cheap plated finishes pit first. Around Laketown we find cylinders that cannot be rekeyed because the pins have seized in their chambers.
The humidity. Timber doors swell through the summer and shrink through the winter, so a door can latch fine in January and fight you in July.
None of those are lock faults. All of them present as lock faults.
When it really is the lock
Wobble that survives tightening the through-bolts. Pitted or chalky finish. A cylinder that turns before the bolt does. Grade 3 builder hardware that has done fifteen Louisiana summers.
If you are replacing anyway, go up a grade while somebody is already there — lock grades explained covers what the numbers mean and why the strike matters more than the lock body.
Still not sure?
Ring and tell us how the three tests went. That is usually enough for us to tell you what you are looking at, including the times when the answer is a screwdriver and you do not need us. Ranges are on the prices page.