Shoes have been made in Elda since at least the eighteenth century, and by the end of the nineteenth there were factories here with more than 400 workers. For a long time that work happened in the town itself, among the houses. In the 1980s the Campo Alto industrial estate was built to move the industry out of the centre.
The premises left behind did not disappear. If you have bought or rented a ground floor in the centre that was once a workshop, to live in, to work from or both, it is part of that history. It will also have locks that were chosen for a workshop, not a home.
The roller shutter
The first thing on most of these premises is a metal roller shutter, and it is usually the first thing to look at.
- Does it lock, and how? Some lock with a key in the shutter itself, others with padlocks on floor bolts at each side. Find out which, and whether you have every key.
- Does it run freely? A shutter that sticks halfway puts strain on everything, including the lock. If it is motorised and the motor is the problem, that is a job for an electrician or the installer; the lock, bolts and manual release are locksmith work.
- Has it been lived with or left? A shutter that stayed shut for years can have a seized lock even if it looks fine.
The door behind it
Behind the shutter there is often a glazed door or an old timber one. A workshop door was meant to be locked at the end of the day by whoever closed up, and it may have a lock that has been there since. If this is now your front door, it deserves the same standard as the door of a flat: a modern cylinder that sits flush, firmly fixed.
The back door
Workshops often had a back door onto a yard, a passage or the building’s stairwell, for deliveries or for staff. It is easy to forget, it may be on the oldest lock in the place, and it can be the easier way in. Check it before anything else.
Keys from the previous occupier
You probably do not know how many keys to the shutter and doors were handed out over the years. A change of cylinders on every external door is the simplest way to make sure the only keys are yours.
In the old town
If your ground floor is in the old town, the streets around the castle are being rebuilt, and the access is narrow at the best of times. The guide to the castle quarter works covers what that means for the front door. If the premises came with a safe nobody can open, see the office safe only the founder could open.