Panic Bars & Exit Devices in San Mateo
Exit devices fitted or repaired for restaurants, shops and back-of-house doors, $285 to $749 per door.
$285–$749
Typical price
23 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
An inspector tests a push bar with one hand, and that is how the door is tested here. The kitchen exit of a restaurant on 25th Ave. The side door of a gym on El Camino. The rear door of a clinic near Mills-Peninsula that opens onto the parking lot. A banquet room off B St with two hundred people inside on a Saturday. Hillsdale Lock & Key installs, rebuilds and replaces rim, mortise and vertical-rod exit devices, along with outside trim, closers and door alarms.
Four numbers decide the part: door width, swing, handing and the fire label on the edge. They are taken before a device is ordered. A bar that has gone stiff, or a latch that no longer catches, is more often a worn cam or a strike that has drifted than a dead device, and a rebuild kit with an adjustment brings it back for a fraction of a new unit. When the device is truly finished, the new one is mounted, and on a vertical-rod unit the rods are cut so the top and bottom latches let go at the same instant. The bar is then pressed at the middle and at each end, since a device that releases only at the center fails the inspector's test and yours. Outside lever trim keyed to your building, a closer that pulls the door all the way to the latch, and a local alarm for a door the staff keep wedging open can all go on in the same visit.
Exit device work is written at $285 to $749 per door with hardware included. A rebuild, or a rim device on one standard door, is the $285 end. Fire-rated vertical-rod devices on a pair of doors with outside trim and an alarm reach $749. The $89 service call is inside the figure. Common rim devices ride on the van; fire-rated and vertical-rod units are often a few days out from the supplier, and you learn which case you are in on the call rather than with the door apart.
Describe the door: a photo of the hardware on it now. It is written down: the figure per door goes on the work order. The van pulls out: the name and the window by text. Fit: measurement, the rebuild or the replacement, alignment, a function test on the closed door, and a written note of anything else on that opening an inspector would question. The note costs nothing and is not a line on the bill. The receipt matches.
“Our 1928 Spanish-revival house has the original mortise lock and the front door swung shut with my keys on the hall table. $138 written down on the call. The text with the technician's name came before I had finished walking to the neighbor's porch, and the van was outside in twenty-three minutes. He picked the mortise cylinder without a mark on the brass and the card was charged $138.”
Every job is priced from the list below. The figure is written down on the call, before the van pulls out, and the receipt matches it line for line.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$45
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$75
FAQ
Panic Bars & Exit Devices: quick answers
The county fire inspector gave us two weeks.+
Rim devices for a single door are on the van, so that door can be done the day you call. Fire-rated and vertical-rod units for a pair of doors are ordered and usually land within a week, which still leaves days to spare. The figure for the full job is written on the first call, so your reply to the inspector can quote it.
Kitchen staff wedge the back door open for air. What stops it?+
A door alarm mounted on the device. The door still opens at once from inside, which is the law and stays so, but it sounds when it is held, and the habit ends within a few shifts. Key trim on the outside lets the produce delivery in without anyone disarming anything.
Should the closer be checked on the same visit?+
Yes, if the door slams or hangs an inch short of the frame. A worn closer makes a good device look faulty, because the latch never reaches the strike with enough speed to catch. The closer is checked while the technician is at the door and written as a separate line, so you decide whether it is done.
Related
More commercial services
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure on the work order, the same figure on the receipt
Calls answered 24/7 across San Mateo and the towns beside it. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the number written down on the call, and the receipt matches it line for line.