What to Do After a Break-In: Securing Your Salt Lake City Home

Before you assess damage or start calling contractors, confirm the property is clear. Do not re-enter your home until law enforcement has walked through it. Once they give you the all-clear, resist the urge to immediately clean up or move items — your insurance company will need photographic documentation of the damage exactly as it was found. Walk through each room with your phone and photograph every broken lock, splintered door frame, shattered window, and displaced deadbolt. Note what was taken and where access was gained. This documentation is essential for both your insurance claim and for the locksmith who arrives to assess your entry points.

Once photos are complete, call your homeowner's insurance provider to open a claim. Most policies cover forced-entry damage including locks, doors, and frames. Ask specifically whether lock rekeying, lock replacement, and door frame repair are covered — they often are under dwelling coverage. Keep every receipt from this point forward.

If a door was kicked in or a window was broken to gain entry, your home is still physically open until repairs are made. Do not wait until morning if this happened at night. Hardware stores along Redwood Road and around the Salt Lake valley carry plywood sheets and heavy-duty door braces that can serve as immediate barriers. A sheet of half-inch plywood screwed over a broken window frame will deter opportunistic re-entry. For a compromised door, a door security bar wedged under the handle and braced against the floor provides meaningful resistance until a new mortise lock or deadbolt is installed.

If the door frame itself was split — which happens frequently in kick-in burglaries — the frame must be reinforced before any new lock will hold. A deadbolt is only as strong as the wood surrounding it. A skilled locksmith can assess whether a door frame repair is needed before investing in upgraded hardware, saving you from spending money on a high-security lock that a second kick would still defeat.

This is the question most homeowners get wrong. Rekeying means a locksmith changes the internal pin configuration of your existing lock so that old keys no longer work — useful if a key was stolen during the break-in. But if the lock itself was physically damaged, picked, or bypassed, rekeying a compromised cylinder is not enough. In many break-in scenarios, especially those involving forced entry on older doors, the right answer is full lock replacement with an upgrade in hardware grade. This is where a mortise lock becomes worth the conversation. Unlike a standard door knob lock or a basic tubular deadbolt, a mortise lock is a complete locking mechanism set into a mortised pocket in the door itself. It integrates a latch, a deadbolt, and often an anti-pick, anti-drill cylinder into a single robust unit — significantly harder to defeat than the hardware on most residential doors in the Salt Lake City area. If your home had a door knob lock as its only protection before the burglary, this is the moment to upgrade. Our team installs and services mortise lock hardware on both residential and commercial properties throughout the Salt Lake valley, and we will assess your specific door thickness and frame condition before recommending the right fit.

For homeowners with multiple entry points — a garage door entry, a back patio door, a basement egress — this is also the right time to audit every lock in the house, not just the one that was breached. Burglars frequently target a secondary entry on a second pass if they believe a home is vulnerable. Upgrading all exterior locks at once closes that window of opportunity.

An emergency locksmith should be your first call after police, and before any contractor. Here is why: a locksmith can assess the full scope of your entry point vulnerabilities, rekey or replace compromised locks immediately, and in many cases reinforce a damaged door frame well enough to make the home secure overnight. This matters because a general contractor may not be available until the following business day. Our team operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week across Salt Lake City and the surrounding communities — if a break-in happens at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, we will be there. When you call, tell the dispatcher what type of damage occurred, how many entry points were compromised, and whether any keys are missing. This allows us to bring the right hardware, including mortise lock components, cylinder replacements, and frame reinforcement materials, on the first visit. Before any work begins, we will confirm an exact up-front price — the final quote depends on factors like the lock type, how many locks need service, whether parts need to be sourced, and travel distance to your address. There are no surprise charges after the fact. Call us at (801) 438-3704 any time — we answer around the clock.

What separates a skilled emergency locksmith visit from a general repair call is the security assessment that comes with it. Ask your technician to walk every exterior entry point with you — not just the one that was breached. A qualified locksmith will flag worn cylinders, misaligned strikes, loose hinges, and inadequate deadbolt throw lengths that a burglar would identify on a second approach. Think of it as a free vulnerability audit that comes built into the service call.

Once the immediate crisis is handled, invest an hour in longer-term hardening. Start with door hardware: residential-grade locks sold at big-box stores are graded ANSI Grade 3, the lowest security rating. Upgrading to Grade 1 hardware — including a quality mortise lock with a hardened steel bolt and anti-pick pins — is a meaningful and measurable improvement. Ask our technicians about Schlage or Kwikset high-security lines, which offer drill-resistant cylinders and reinforced strike plates that anchor deep into the door frame stud rather than just the trim. Strike plate screws should be at least three inches long to reach the structural framing — most factory-installed screws are under an inch.

Beyond hardware, consider your key control. If keys were stolen, rekeying alone is not sufficient if a duplicate was made before the theft was discovered. This is also a good moment to think about whether a self-service key kiosk copy — the kind commonly found inside grocery stores — was ever used to duplicate your house keys without your knowledge. Kiosk-duplicated keys can be made quickly and without identity verification, which means a key that passed through the wrong hands could already have a copy in existence. For true key control going forward, ask our team about restricted keyways and high-security cylinders that cannot be duplicated at a retail kiosk. These systems ensure that copies can only be made by an authorized locksmith with your verified permission, giving you real accountability over who holds access to your home. This matters in shared buildings, rental properties, and anywhere keys have changed hands over the years. Pair smarter hardware with habits: do not hide spare keys under mats or in the obvious spots near your front porch, vary your schedule, and make sure all garage entry doors have a deadbolt separate from the garage opener — a detail many Salt Lake City homeowners overlook entirely.

Burglars who enter a home sometimes grab car keys along with other valuables — and if your vehicle was parked outside, it may have been taken or accessed as well. If your car keys were stolen during the break-in, contact us to discuss key replacement and, if applicable, key fob reprogramming. A locksmith can reprogram a key fob for most makes and models, and can also cut and program a new transponder key to ensure the stolen key no longer starts the vehicle. The cost of this service depends on the vehicle make and model, the type of key system it uses, and whether a dealership-level programming tool is required — we will give you a clear quote before any work begins. If your vehicle was involved in the incident, do not delay addressing the keys — a stolen key fob in the wrong hands is an open invitation. Our team handles automotive locksmith work across the Salt Lake City area alongside our residential and commercial locksmith services, so one call covers everything. Reach us at (801) 438-3704 for immediate help.

A1 Salt Lake City Locksmith is a fully mobile, 24/7 locksmith serving homeowners, drivers, and businesses across Salt Lake City and the surrounding communities. Our services include: residential lock rekeying, mortise lock installation and repair, deadbolt installation and upgrade, door knob lock replacement, high-security cylinder installation, door frame reinforcement, emergency lockout response for homes, emergency lockout response for vehicles, lockout response for commercial properties, key cutting for home and office, duplicate key services, restricted keyway installation, transponder key cutting and programming, key fob replacement and reprogramming, ignition repair and replacement, broken key extraction from locks and ignitions, safe opening and combination changes, mailbox lock replacement, padlock replacement and rekeying, sliding door lock installation, garage entry door lock upgrade, gate lock installation, commercial deadbolt and mortise lock installation, access control hardware assessment, post-break-in security audit, multi-point lock system service, and full lock changeout for residential move-ins. Whether you need a single cylinder rekeyed or a full home re-hardware after a break-in, our experienced technicians arrive equipped to handle the job on the first visit.