Santa Pola grew fast at the start of the century. According to the Generalitat’s municipal fact sheet, 34.4 % of all urban properties in the municipality were built between 2000 and 2009, the largest share of any decade. Many of them are the bungalows, terraced houses and apartments of Gran Alacant and Santa Pola del Este.
If you own one, there is a fair chance that the cylinders in the doors are the ones the builder put in. That matters for two reasons.
Twenty years of salt
A cylinder that has lived through up to twenty summers by the sea has had its pins and springs exposed to salt air the whole time. It may still work, but more stiffly every year, until one day it does not. What salt does inside a cylinder explains the mechanics.
Standards have moved on
Since then, cylinders that resist the common attacks (snapping the cylinder at its weak point, bumping it with a special key, drilling it) have become widely available. A basic cylinder from the 2000s was not designed against those.
Three ways to judge the cylinder you have
- Look at the face of the cylinder. A brand name and a row of stars or a certification mark suggest a rated cylinder. Nothing at all suggests a basic one.
- Check how far it sticks out. A cylinder that protrudes several millimetres beyond the handle plate can be gripped. Flush or protected by a guard plate is better.
- Count the keys. Do you know how many keys were made, and who has them? With a resale property, the honest answer is usually no.
When it is worth changing
- When you have just bought the property, resale or not.
- When a tenant or a long-term guest has moved out.
- When the key has become stiff, whatever the age.
- After a break-in nearby, or when the property will stand empty for months.
A like-for-like change is an ordinary lock change. If you want the stronger options, high-security cylinders and guard plates are on the burglary repair page, where they live for a reason: they are what you would fit after a break-in, so fitting them before is simply cheaper.
And while the cylinders are being looked at, it is worth checking the terrace too: the terrace slider that jams every September.