Between 1956 and 1968, 580 homes went up in San Francisco de Sales, on what was then the edge of Elda. Las Trescientas and the Virgen de la Cabeza group are from the same years. They were social housing, for the families who came to work in the shoe factories. The estate in San Francisco de Sales is now listed by Docomomo Ibérico as a piece of modern architecture. Its front doors, though, were ordinary doors of their time, made for the risks of their time.
If you live in one of these flats and nobody has ever changed the door, this is for you.
How to tell whether you have the original door
Open the door and look at its inside face and its edge.
- A lock box screwed to the inside face, with a knob or a small lever, is a surface-mounted lock. It was the ordinary choice for flat doors of that time.
- A plain timber leaf, without a steel sheet inside it, is the norm for those years. Knock on it: a reinforced door sounds and feels quite different.
- A cylinder that sticks out beyond the handle on the outside was probably added later, perhaps when a previous occupant lost their keys.
None of this is a defect in itself. It is just a door built for another era.
What an old lock is good at, and what it is not
A sound surface-mounted lock on a solid door keeps out the casual opportunist. It is less good against the methods people use now. A cylinder that stands proud of the plate can be gripped and snapped. An old latch can often be slipped from outside on a door that has dropped or shrunk. Screws holding the lock box can work loose in soft, sixty-year-old timber.
There is also wear. A lock that has been turned several times a day for decades has worn internals, and the first sign is usually a key that needs jiggling. That is a lock asking for attention before it leaves you on the landing.
What is worth doing first
In rough order of value for money:
- Check the door closes freely. If you have to lift or push it to lock it, the door has moved in its frame. Wood in Elda moves with the seasons, as the guide on hot afternoons and cold nights explains, and a door that binds wears out any lock.
- Replace a protruding cylinder with one that sits flush and is built to resist snapping. It is the cheapest change with the biggest effect.
- Firm up the fixings. Longer screws into sound timber, or a reinforcing plate, so the lock cannot simply be levered off.
- Then decide about the lock itself. A surface-mounted lock can be replaced with a better one of the same type, or the door can be adapted for a modern lock with a cylinder. Which is right depends on the thickness and condition of the timber.
When the door itself is the problem
Sometimes the honest answer is that the door, not the lock, is the weak point: thin panels, split timber round the old lock, a frame that no longer holds a screw. Then a better lock is money spent on the wrong thing, and it is worth knowing before you spend it.
If you are renovating, the moment to decide is before the painters come. The same reasoning applies to houses in the old town, covered in the guide to the castle quarter works.
If you rent
Talk to the owner before changing anything. Most will welcome a better cylinder, especially paid for or shared, but the lock is theirs, and your contract may say who can change it.