Commercial · Toronto
Access Control Installation
Something went missing from the storeroom over a weekend, and when you ask who was in the building, the honest answer is anyone with a key.
In plain words
Locking hardware varies by opening: an electric strike, fitted into the existing frame, keeps the mechanical latch and releases it briefly for a valid credential; a magnetic lock clamps the door shut with an electromagnet and suits a frame or door that will not take a strike; and some openings use an electromechanical lock or a different controlled lockset entirely. Several of these can also be fitted with a mechanical override cylinder, so a lost signal, a dead battery, or a controller fault still leaves that particular door opening by key, though the option depends on the hardware chosen for it.
How the visit goesDeliveries arrive before anyone is scheduled to be there, which right now means either propping the loading dock open at dawn or handing a key to a driver you have never met.
Access Control Installation
How the visit goes
Sorting out a shared entrance
In a multi-tenant building, the survey has to account for doors that are not fully any one tenant's to control: a shared lobby, a parking garage entrance, a rooftop or mechanical room a landlord manages separately. The locksmith works out with the property manager and each tenant which credentials belong on which controller, so a tenant's staff can reach their own suite without gaining access to another business's space or to areas the landlord keeps under its own control, and so a departing tenant's credentials can be removed without touching anyone else's.
Fitting a magnetic lock with its release device
A magnetic lock is mounted to the head of the frame with a matching armature plate on the door, and it is never installed alone: a request-to-exit device, usually a motion sensor or a mechanical push bar, is wired in to drop power to the magnet the moment someone inside moves to leave, and a connection to the fire alarm panel does the same the instant an alarm activates. The lock is aligned so the plate meets the magnet squarely across the full swing of the door, since even a small gap lets a determined push defeat the hold.
Watching the doors through a change of season
Steel and aluminum frames move slightly with temperature, and a wood door can swell in a humid spell or shrink once the heat comes on for winter, either of which can nudge an electric strike or a magnetic lock's armature plate out of the alignment it was installed with. A door that used to release cleanly and now needs a firm pull, or a magnetic lock that seems to hold less securely than it did in the spring, is usually telling you about the door rather than the electronics, and an alignment check at each change of season keeps it from becoming a pattern.
Access Control Installation
In the van
Card and fob readers
Electric strikes
Credential cards and fobs
Mechanical override cylinders
Fire alarm interface relay
Access Control Installation
What affects the quote
How many credentials and what type
Cards, fobs, keypad codes and mobile credentials each involve different issuing steps, and a system enrolling a handful of managers is a shorter task than one enrolling an entire staff across several shifts.
How many doors are being controlled
A single entrance and a building with a dozen openings are different jobs in scale rather than kind, and the number of doors, readers and locks involved is the largest single factor in sizing the work.
Electric strike or magnetic lock
An electric strike works with the door's existing latch and generally needs less additional hardware than a magnetic lock, which also calls for a request-to-exit device and, on an exit door, a fire alarm tie-in.
What to have ready
- Is there an existing keypad or card system on any door now?
- Who in the business will manage the system once it is installed?
- Do any doors need different hours than the rest of the building?
Access Control Installation: questions
QuestionsCan a person's access change automatically by time of day or day of the week?
Yes. Access levels can be set to change automatically by time of day or day of the week, so a credential that opens a door during a shift can be denied outside it without anyone having to remember to switch it off manually. This is set up once in the schedule and then runs on its own from that point forward.
What maintenance does the system need going forward?
Ongoing maintenance is light: checking the battery backup and the request-to-exit device periodically, keeping reader surfaces reasonably clean, and revoking credentials promptly once someone leaves. Door and frame alignment is worth a look at each change of season, since a shifted door can affect how cleanly an electric strike or a magnetic lock releases.
Does a door still need a mechanical key at all once it's on the system?
Not always — it depends on the hardware chosen for that door. Where a mechanical override cylinder is fitted and keyed in, it can still be opened by key regardless of what happens to the electronics, the network, or the power supply, and it is meant as a backup rather than a daily habit, since using it routinely bypasses the entry record the system is there to keep.
Related services
- Master Key System DesignA self-storage operator wants the office, the tenant gate and the equipment shed on three different levels of access for staff, but every lock on the property currently answers to the same handful of interchangeable keys handed out over the years.
- Panic & Exit HardwareThe daycare wants the yard gate and the classroom door alarmed so a staff member hears the moment it opens, without turning either into something a child could be shut behind.
- Commercial-Grade Lock ReplacementA new tenant moved into the unit next door, and the property manager just found three different cylinders on three doors, none of them cut to the same key.