Hanover Housing is a long established client of ours which we have provided and supported many master key suited systems down the years. They contacted us regarding one of their care homes as they needed us to provide an urgent master key suited system.
Obstacle:
We received a call within the evening of New Years Eve from Hanover Housing’s emergency call out desk, giving us information of a break-in occurring at one of their premises. Their current master key suited system had been compromised as one of the master keys was stolen during the break-in. The residents would be unprotected while the new master key suited system was being designed and build.
Analysis:
We needed to attend site urgently in order to make their premises secure whilst the master key suite was being designed and manufactured.
The previous suite was antiquated and had no key control, the residents could get keys cut at any locksmiths, as the system was not restricted. This made it difficult for the estate manager to maintain key records, especially when residents moved out as it was unknown whether they still had additional keys. The new suite needed to be restricted so that only the estate manager can contact us to provide additional keys as required.
The residents brought to the estate managers attention that it was difficult for them to determine the difference between their communal entrance door key and their flat door key. The new suite would be better if it incorporates the communal door and their flat door in the same key.
The residents are all elderly so the new product needs to have a smooth, easy action and that could provide a large internal thumb turn.
Solution:
We attended site immediately and replaced all of the communal door locks to non-suited locks, these were all of the external doors, so the premises would be secure until the new system was fitted.
We chose a Dom Sigma product. A very reliable, high quality German product which is very versatile and incorporates all of the requirements in our analysis. We designed the suite with four blocks of differs allowing for individual common entrance and one overall common for communal areas. A cleaning/maintenance key and office keys all under one master. 50% additional differs were taken into consideration when designing the suite for possible expansion.
The system was designed, manufactured and installed within 10 days.
A master key was stolen from one of our sheltered schemes on New Years Eve. Master Key Suites Direct were already supporting a number of master keys suites at various schemes of ours.We called them late on New Years Eve. They attended site and secured all of the communal entrances with temporary locks.
Within a few days they had replaced the complete Master Key Suite. We have been really impressed with the professional and courteous way in which they dealt with our emergency work and will continue to use their services.”
Lezley