Everyone’s lost a set of keys at least once in their lives.
That moment of realization that you don’t have the key to your home, safe, or car leads straight into panic, which leads to a call to the residential locksmith. As a top locksmith in St. Louis, we’ve seen countless customers misplace or outright lose their keys with seemingly no backup plan.
What’s mindblowing is how easy it is to have a backup plan. Key duplication costs $5 and you can do it at your local hardware store in a matter of minutes, so why don’t more people have spare keys?
Today, we’re going to explain why you should always keep a spare key in a secure location. A little bit of pre-planning goes a long way, so keep reading and understand the importance of spare keys for your security, safety, and most of all, sanity.
Prevent Accidental Lockouts
The most obvious benefit of having spare keys around is that you prevent accidental lockouts. As we mentioned at the top, everyone’s had this happen before, but those who are prepared with a spare key don’t skip a beat.
Whether you’ve got the key in a hidden lockbox outside of your home or it’s a call away with a loved one, having spare keys diffuses a tricky situation. In a matter of minutes, you’ll have the spare key in your hands and enter your home or car as if nothing happened.
If you don’t have a spare key, you have to figure out a solution quickly. No doubt, you’ll start thinking about how to break into your own home, car, or safe before considering a locksmith. Fortunately, our emergency services are available, but we’d always rather see our customers with accessible spare keys.
Save Time and Money
Realizing that you’ve lost your key and don’t have a backup costs you time in addition to money. The few dollars it’s going to cost to have duplicates made is far less than having a locksmith come in (even if we do have the best rates).
If your locksmith is busy with another client, they may not be able to drop everything and come at a moment’s notice. You’ll have to wait for them to arrive when they can, so you’ll have to put your life on hold for those minutes or hours.
Hire us for key duplication and you can have a second set of car or house keys in a matter of minutes. We’ll duplicate any type of key for an affordable rate, so you’ll never have to worry about wasting your time and money on lost keys again.
Quick Fix to Broken Keys
As with most devices that get a lot of use, your keys are liable to snap after years of opening locks. If your key snaps apart and gets stuck in the lock, you’ll need to give us a shout to have your locks replaced. This shouldn’t happen when you’re paying close attention to the key’s behavior.
Before a key breaks off in a lock, you’ll notice some resistance that wasn’t there before. As soon as this happens, you should inspect your key for cracks or other blemishes. If you notice anything suspicious, it’s best to stop using that key immediately.
For those that have a spare key ready, you can just decommission the original key and pivot to the new one. However, if you don’t have a spare, you’ll need to go ahead and have your key duplicated before it breaks.
If it breaks and you don’t have a spare, you’ll need to contact us for immediate key duplication.
Give Emergency Access When Needed
When you’ve got spare keys on the premises, you can give emergency access to your home, safe, or vehicle as needed.
Maybe you’re on vacation and a neighbor saw someone suspicious lurking around your home one day. If that neighbor has access to a spare key, they can enter your home and make sure nothing is missing.
Perhaps you’re selling your home and the realtor needs access to show a potential buyer around. If you’ve got a spare key in a secure location near the house, you won’t have to drop whatever you’re doing to let them in.
There are countless situations like this where having a spare key can give someone else access without troubling you. Whether this saves you the hassle of returning home or prevents damage or crime, it’s an easy and affordable measure to take.
Peace of Mind
No one ever sets out to lose their keys, but almost everyone lets their guard down from time to time. If you misplace a key without a spare available, it causes most people plenty of stress until the situation is resolved.
What a duplicate key really provides is peace of mind. If you go through your pocket and realize your car key is gone, it’s okay because you can just go back inside and get the spare. There’s little to no stress in this situation because it doesn’t disrupt your life in any way.
Having spare keys creates a less stressful situation for your future self. It’s worth doing just to have this peace of mind at all times.
When a Residential Locksmith Can Help
Now that you understand why spare keys are so important, you can have yours made ASAP. Lucky Locksmith is St. Louis’ top choice for key duplication services. We’re also equipped to help those that don’t yet have a spare key, so whether you’re locked out of your house or need your car keys replaced, we’re here to help.
Our residential locksmith services are available 24/7, including weekends and holidays, so when disaster strikes, just contact us and we’ll help you out of your jam.