Broken key · 24/7 · Greater Manchester
Half the key is in your hand. Put the other half down.
Get a price in 2 minutes
Tell us the postcode and what kind of door. We ring straight back.
- Extraction £35-70
- 20-40 min on site
- Lock usually survives
- 24/7, no call-out fee
Right now the broken half is sitting in your lock, held only by friction, in roughly the position it needs to be for us to get it out cleanly. Everything you do in the next ten minutes decides whether this costs £35 or £130.
Do not do these
- Don't poke it with anything
- Don't try tweezers
- Don't superglue the halves together
- Don't spray WD-40 in it
- Don't push the other half in after it
Every one of those pushes the broken piece deeper, past the point where an extractor can grip it, or wedges it sideways in the keyway. That is the difference between a twenty-minute job with tweezers-and-a-hook and drilling out the cylinder.
Superglue is the worst of them. It bonds the fragment to the pins, not to your key half. Now the cylinder is scrap, guaranteed, and we cannot even try.
Why it snapped
Keys do not break because you were rough. They break because they were already tired and the lock was already fighting.
The key was worn
Ten thousand turns wears brass. It gets thin at the shoulder. One cold morning it gives.
The lock was stiff
Dirty or worn cylinder, so you were turning harder than you realised. The key was taking the load.
The door had dropped
The bolt was binding against the frame. You were levering a door with a piece of brass.
It was a copy of a copy
Copied keys inherit wear and lose a fraction each time. Third-generation keys are weak. See key cutting.
This matters because extracting the key does not fix the cause. If the lock was stiff, the next key will snap too. We service it while we are there.
What we actually do
Thin extractor tools go into the keyway alongside the fragment, hook the cut edge, and draw it out. It takes minutes when the piece is still where it broke. Then we test the lock, find out why it was stiff, and cut you a fresh key from the two halves or from the lock itself.
If the fragment has been pushed deep, or someone has glued it, or the cylinder is already wrecked, we drill it and replace it. That is £90-150 instead of £35-70, and it is almost always avoidable by not touching it.
Key snapped, door open?
Do not close it. If the door is standing open and the key is broken in the lock, you currently have a repair. Close it and you have a repair plus a lockout. Wedge it, sit with it, wait for us.
What it costs
| Situation | Price |
|---|---|
| Extraction, fragment still accessible | £35-70 |
| Extraction + lock service (the cause) | £60-100 |
| New key cut from the halves | £8-15 |
| Mortice key, cut to the lock | £25-55 |
| Cylinder drilled out and replaced | £90-150 |
Lock repair · Euro cylinders · Mortice locks
Questions people actually ask
My key snapped in the lock. What should I do right now?
Nothing. That sounds unhelpful but it is the actual answer. The broken half is currently sitting where it broke, held by friction, in roughly the position we need it to be to hook it out cleanly. Do not poke it, do not try tweezers, do not push the other half in after it, and above all do not superglue the halves together. Every one of those either pushes the fragment deeper than an extractor can reach or wedges it sideways. That is the difference between a £35 extraction and a £130 drill-out.
Can you get a broken key out without damaging the lock?
Usually yes, if nobody has poked at it first. We use thin extractor tools that go into the keyway alongside the fragment, hook the cut edge and draw it out, which takes minutes when the piece is still where it broke. The lock survives, you keep your cylinder, and we cut you a fresh key from the two halves. Drilling is only needed when the fragment has been pushed deep, when someone has glued it, or when the cylinder was already damaged.
How much does broken key extraction cost in Manchester?
£35 to £70 for the extraction itself when the fragment is still accessible, which is most cases, and it takes 20 to 40 minutes. Cutting you a new key from the two halves is another £8 to £15, or £25 to £55 for a lever mortice key that has to be cut to the lock. If the cylinder has to be drilled out and replaced, £90 to £150. There is no call-out fee and no night or weekend surcharge.
Why did my key snap in the first place?
Almost never because you were rough with it. Keys snap because they were already worn thin at the shoulder from thousands of turns, and because the lock was already stiff so you were applying more force than you realised. Sometimes the door has dropped and the bolt is binding on the frame, which means you were effectively levering a door with a piece of brass. Copies are weaker again, because each copy inherits the previous key's wear. This matters, because extracting the key does not fix the cause. If the lock was stiff, the next key will snap too, so we service it while we are there.
My key broke but the door is open. Is that better?
Yes, considerably, and there is one thing you must not do: close the door. Right now you have a repair. Close it and you have a repair plus a lockout, and the price roughly doubles. Wedge it open, sit with it if you can, and wait for us. If you cannot stay with it and the property would be insecure, ring us and say so, because that changes how we prioritise it.