New Home Security First Day | What to Change

You've got the keys. The removal van is in the street. Your phone has 12% battery and someone's asking where the kettle is.

This is also the worst possible moment to think clearly about security. Which is exactly why you need to have thought about it already.

The previous owners might be the most trustworthy people in County Durham. Probably are. But they've handed keys to estate agents, solicitors, trades, cleaners, a neighbour who watered the plants. Copies get cut. Keys go missing. Nobody keeps a log. You're not being paranoid by changing the locks on day one. You're just being sensible.

This guide runs through what to do, in what order, on the day you collect the keys. Some of it you can do yourself. Some of it needs a locksmith. I'll tell you which is which.

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Start with a walk around, not a screwdriver

Before you change anything, spend ten minutes doing a full external circuit of the property. Front to back, both sides. You're looking for existing problems, not just planning upgrades.

Take a phone, take photos, and check for:

• Window handles that don't close flush. A uPVC window that sits slightly proud has probably dropped off its hinges. You can't lock it properly until that's fixed.
• Doors that drag on the frame. Means the door has dropped or the frame has shifted. A door that doesn't sit square won't lock securely even with a brand new cylinder.
• Outbuildings with padlocks. Note the brand and style. Cheap open-shackle padlocks on a garage or workshop are the first thing to replace, not the last.
• Side gates. Is it bolted from the inside? Does the bolt actually engage? A gate that looks closed but doesn't bolt is essentially open.
• Any alarm boxes, internal panels, door sensors. Find out whether the system is live or a dummy box before assuming you're covered.
• External key safes. If there's one on the wall, it needs to come off or be reprogrammed before nightfall. More on this later.

Write everything down. You'll forget the back gate latch when you're three hours into unpacking.

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The front door cylinder: do this first

Every other entry point can wait a few hours. The front door cannot. It's the key that was in the estate agent's key cabinet, on a hook in the solicitor's office, in the vendor's kitchen drawer when the plumber came to fix a leak in 2019.

For most houses in Seaham, whether you're on a newer build in Westlea, a terrace in Dawdon, or a semi in Parkside, you'll have a standard euro cylinder. That's the oval-shaped barrel you see on most uPVC and composite doors. They come out with one screw and about two minutes of work.

What to replace it with. The minimum you should fit is a TS007 3-star rated anti-snap cylinder. Snap attacks are still the dominant forced entry method on euro-cylinder doors across the north east. A 3-star cylinder (look for the kite mark and the TS007 rating on the packaging) eliminates that vulnerability. Brands worth fitting: Ultion, Avocet ABS, Mul-T-Lock. They're not cheap, typically £40 to £80 for the cylinder itself, but it's a one-time job.

If you're buying and fitting yourself, measure your existing cylinder first. The measurement is taken from the centre of the fixing screw hole to each end, written as something like 35/45. Get this wrong and the cylinder won't fit, or worse, it'll fit but the cam won't align with the lock mechanism.

If you'd rather have a locksmith do it while you're unloading the van, it takes about 20 minutes per door, parts and labour included you're usually looking at £80 to £120 depending on the cylinder spec.

Don't forget the thumb-turn side. Most 3-star cylinders come in a keyed/keyed format. For a front door, you want keyed outside and thumb-turn inside. Means you can get out fast without finding a key in an emergency. Check the spec before ordering.

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Back door and side doors

Same exercise, second priority. If your property has a rear access door, it's often less substantial than the front, which is why burglars prefer it.

On older properties in areas like Seaham Harbour or Deneside, you sometimes still see mortice locks on timber back doors. Check whether it's a BS3621 5-lever mortice. If it's a 2-lever or 3-lever, it's not insurance-compliant and should be upgraded. A 5-lever mortice replacement is a more involved job than swapping a cylinder. It requires cutting into the door edge. Get a locksmith.

If the back door is uPVC with a multipoint lock, the cylinder is changed the same way as the front. The multipoint mechanism itself (the long strip of bolts and hooks that engage when you lift the handle) rarely needs replacing unless it's visibly damaged or stiff. If the door locks but you have to really lift the handle to get the bolts to shoot, that's worth sorting. It's usually a case of adjusting the keeps on the frame, not replacing the whole mechanism.

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Window locks

This is the bit people consistently skip, and it's the bit that catches them out.

uPVC and aluminium windows have night vent positions secured by cockspur handles or lever handles with built-in locks. When those handles are locked, the window is held shut. What people don't check is whether the key that comes with the house actually operates them.

Walk around every window in the property with the keys that were handed over. Test each one. If a key doesn't turn, or only partially operates the lock, you either have the wrong key or the lock mechanism is worn.

Window handle lock cylinders can be replaced without replacing the entire handle. They're small push-in cylinders, usually around £8 to £15 each. If you've got eight windows with functioning handles and you just need new keys cut, a locksmith can often re-pin or replace the cylinders to a single key, so you're not carrying a bunch of different window keys.

Wooden sash windows on older properties near the seafront or around New Seaham sometimes have no security locks at all, just a simple latch. Add sash window stops or sash locks. Not glamorous, but effective. Prices start around £12 per window for a surface-mount bolt.

Ground floor windows get a lot of attention. Don't ignore first-floor windows if there's a flat roof, a bay, or a garage roof that provides access. A burglar who can't get in on the ground floor will look up.

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The garage

Possibly the most neglected entry point on a residential property. If the garage is integral to the house, meaning you can walk from the garage into the hallway or kitchen without going outside, it's a door into your home and it needs treating like one.

Up-and-over garage doors with a standard cylinder lock are famously easy to bypass. There are specialist garage door defenders worth fitting: floor-to-door bars that resist forcing, typically £50 to £100 fitted. If the door is electric, test that the manual release works and that someone can't pull the release cord through the top seal from outside. Some older models are genuinely easy to manipulate from outside with a coat hanger through the weather seal.

For the internal door between garage and living space, make sure it's a solid core door (not hollow) and that it has at minimum a 5-lever mortice lock or a quality multipoint if it's uPVC. That door is your last line if the garage is compromised.

Padlocks on a side-hinged garage door: open-shackle padlocks can be attacked with bolt croppers in seconds. If you're padlocking a garage, fit a closed-shackle padlock at minimum, Squire, Abloy, or Mul-T-Lock. The shackle should be as short as possible, leaving no room for a cropper jaw to get purchase.

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Side gates

A wooden side gate with a standard bolt on the inside is fine until someone reaches over the top or through a gap and slides the bolt. Two checks:

First, can someone reach the bolt from outside? If the gate is under about 1.8m, or if there are horizontal bars that act as a ladder, they probably can. Fit a bolt that requires a key or a bolt with a locking collar on the outside-facing side.

Second, does the bolt actually engage properly? Gates warp. Gaps open up. A bolt that looked fine when the vendor moved in may now miss its keep by 20mm and be providing zero security. Test it physically: lift the gate, push it, rattle it. If the bolt doesn't hold under pressure, it's not doing its job.

Gate hinges are also worth a look. Hinge bolts on the inside of the hinged edge mean the gate can't be lifted off even if the hinges are attacked. About £8 for a pair, 20 minutes to fit.

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External key safes

If there's a key safe screwed to the wall by the front door, get it off or change the code before you do anything else.

The vendor might have used it for carers, cleaners, or family. You don't know who has that code. It could be written on a Post-it in somebody else's kitchen. A key safe with a compromised code is worse than no key safe, because a burglar can let themselves in quietly at 3am without any signs of forced entry.

Change the code immediately. Or remove it entirely. If you don't need it, take it off the wall. Two screws and a screwdriver.

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Alarm systems and door sensors

If the property has an existing alarm, find out its status before nightfall on day one.

Is it live, or a decommissioned dummy? A previous installer's box with no active panel behind it is cosmetically useful but not functionally protective. Check whether there's an active control panel inside, whether it has a current monitoring contract, and whether the previous owners have passed over the engineer code.

Without the engineer code, you can't change the user codes properly. You can reset some panels, but it's model-dependent and sometimes needs an engineer visit. Put this on the list for week one, not month three.

Door and window sensors from a previous system might still be on the walls but disconnected. Don't assume a sensor on a frame means it's armed.

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A note on doing it all at once versus phasing it

Moving day is exhausting. You won't do all of this in one afternoon, and you don't have to.

Priority order, if you're doing it in stages:

1. Front door cylinder. Same day, before night.
2. Back and side door cylinders. Same day if possible.
3. External key safe code change or removal. Same day.
4. Garage internal door lock check. Day one or two.
5. Window locks. First week.
6. Side gate bolts and hinges. First week.
7. Garage door security. First month.
8. Alarm system verification. First month.

For a typical 3-bed semi in SR7, getting the front and back cylinders changed professionally on moving day costs around £160 to £220 for quality 3-star anti-snap cylinders on both doors, parts and labour included. That's less than the excess on most home insurance policies.

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The one thing most people miss entirely

Internal connecting doors on new-build estates. On some of the housing developments around Seaham built in the last 15 years, properties share internal cavities between semi-detached units. The dividing wall doors (if any exist to a loft or utility void) can be remarkably thin and sometimes have no locks. This is rare, but worth checking on day one. If you find an internal door you didn't expect, find out where it leads before you assume it's a cupboard.

Also: meters. External meter cupboards with access from the street sometimes have a door that opens directly into a ground floor void. Check whether the meter cupboard on the outside of your property provides access to anything beyond the meter itself. On older terraces in areas like Dawdon, this occasionally comes up.

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If you're moving into a property in Seaham or anywhere across the SR postcodes and you want the cylinders changed on the day, Rapid Response covers the whole area with an average arrival under 30 minutes where the job allows. Pricing is confirmed on the call before anyone comes out. No surprises on the invoice. Call when you're ready.