A plain-English guide
Residential Lock Types
Deadbolts, knobsets, levers, mortise, multipoint, smart locks and high-security cylinders — what each one actually does, and which one belongs on your door.
Start here
Grade, Not Brand, Is What You Are Buying
The number on the box tells you more than the name on it.
Locks sold in Canada are commonly graded to an ANSI/BHMA standard: Grade 3, Grade 2 and Grade 1, from lowest to highest. The grade is not marketing. It reflects measured performance in cycle testing, in strength testing and in resistance to forced entry, and it is the single most useful number on the package.
Grade 3 is basic residential. It is what comes on most new builds and most hardware-store blister packs. It works, it will survive normal domestic use, and it is not intended to resist a determined attack. Grade 2 is a genuine step up in both durability and strength and is where most homeowners should be for an exterior door. Grade 1 is commercial-duty hardware; it is heavier, considerably more expensive, and overkill on a typical front door unless the door is unusually exposed.
What the grade does not tell you is anything about the frame it is fitted to. A Grade 1 deadbolt in a jamb held by two short screws is a very expensive way to protect a strip of trim. Grade matters, but it matters second.
The main families
Every Lock On A Canadian Home
What it is, where it belongs, and where it lets you down.
Single-cylinder deadbolt
Key outside, thumbturn inside. The standard exterior lock in Canada and the right default for almost every front door. Look for a full one-inch bolt throw and a hardened insert. Its weakness is never the bolt — it is the strike and the wood behind it.
Double-cylinder deadbolt
Key on both sides. Sometimes suggested for doors with glass beside them, so an intruder cannot reach through and turn a thumbturn. It also means you cannot get out in a fire without finding a key, which is why it is restricted on exit doors and why we rarely recommend it in a home.
Knobset (cylindrical lock)
The round knob with a key in the middle. Convenient, universally available, and structurally the weakest common exterior lock: the knob can be attacked directly and the latch is short. Fine as a latch beside a deadbolt. Not fine on its own.
Lever handle
Easier to operate than a knob, and far better for anyone with limited grip strength — which is why it is standard on accessible and commercial doors. Mechanically similar to a knobset, so the same rule applies: pair it with a deadbolt.
Mortise lock
A rectangular case set into a pocket cut in the door edge, combining latch and deadbolt in one heavy unit. Common on older Whitby homes downtown and in Port Whitby, and on commercial doors. Extremely durable, expensive to replace, and repairable far more often than people assume.
Multipoint lock
One handle throws hooks or bolts at several points up and down the door. Standard on UPVC and many patio and back doors. Excellent when working; when the gearbox fails you get a door that has to be lifted hard to lock, and eventually one that will not open at all.
High-security cylinder
Anti-drill pins, hardened inserts, anti-pick pin design and restricted keyways that a hardware store cannot copy. Genuinely harder to defeat and genuinely harder to have copied without authorisation. See high-security options.
Smart lock
Keypad, app, fob or fingerprint driving a motorised deadbolt. Real convenience, real code control, and a battery. Buy one with a mechanical key override and treat the batteries as maintenance rather than a surprise.
Rim lock and night latch
Surface-mounted on the inside of the door, common on older properties and secondary entries. Useful as a supplementary lock, weak as a primary one because it is fixed to the door face rather than through it.
How locks actually get defeated
Picking Is Rare. These Are Common.
Television has given people a completely inaccurate picture of how doors get opened. Lock picking is a real skill, it takes real practice, and it is close to irrelevant in residential break-ins because it is slow and requires the intruder to stand at the door looking like they are working on it.
What actually happens is force. Kicking, which breaks the frame beside the lock rather than the lock. Prying the door away from the jamb with a bar. Snapping a poorly-made cylinder in a UPVC door. Or, most often of all, walking in through a door or window that was not locked at all.
Which is why the sensible order of spending is: make sure things are actually locked, reinforce the frame, then upgrade the cylinder. Most people do that list backwards and wonder why the expensive lock did not help.
What to look for when you buy
✓ Grade 2 or better on any exterior door.
✓ A full one-inch bolt throw on a deadbolt.
✓ A hardened insert in the bolt against sawing.
✓ A box strike in the package, not a flat plate.
✓ Three-inch screws for the strike and hinges.
✓ A mechanical override on any smart lock.
If the box does not state a grade at all, treat it as Grade 3.
Smart locks
Keyless Entry, Honestly Assessed
Smart locks solve real problems. You can give a cleaner a code that works on Tuesdays, let a family member in from your phone while you are at work, stop cutting spare keys for a teenager who loses them, and change the code the day someone stops needing access. For a rental or a house with a lot of coming and going, that is genuinely better than keys.
They also introduce failure modes that mechanical locks do not have. Batteries die, usually at the least convenient moment. Motors and gearboxes wear. Wi-Fi models depend on your network and on a manufacturer’s cloud service that may not exist in ten years. And a keypad in a Whitby winter has to survive temperatures that consumer electronics are not always tested for.
The practical rules are short. Buy one with a mechanical key override and keep that key somewhere sensible. Change the batteries on a schedule rather than waiting for the warning. Change the installer or factory code immediately. And if the lock is on a rental or a short-term let, make sure somebody local knows where the physical key is.
Which door needs what
A Simple Rule For Each Opening
01
Front door
Grade 2 single-cylinder deadbolt plus a latch handle, in a reinforced frame with a box strike. This is the default that suits almost every Whitby home.
02
Back and side doors
The same standard as the front. These are less visible from the street, which makes them more attractive, not less important.
03
Garage side entry
Usually the weakest lock on the property and it opens into an unobserved space. Treat it exactly like a front door.
04
Interior garage door
The door from the garage into the house. Very often a hollow interior door with a privacy handle. It should be a solid door with a deadbolt.
Keyed Alike: One Key For The Whole House
Most homes accumulate keys the way they accumulate remote controls. A front door key, a different back door key, a third for the side entry, and one on the ring that nobody can identify any more.
Cylinders of compatible types can be pinned to the same combination, so one key runs every exterior door. It can be done as part of a rekey without replacing any hardware, and it is one of those changes people notice every single day.
The one caveat is mixed brands. Where an exterior door has a cylinder that cannot be pinned to match the others, we will tell you and give you the options rather than quietly leaving one door out of the set.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Grade 1, 2 and 3?
They are ANSI/BHMA performance grades from lab testing — cycles, strength and forced-entry resistance. Grade 3 is basic residential, Grade 2 is the sensible standard for an exterior door, Grade 1 is commercial-duty.
Is a double-cylinder deadbolt more secure?
Marginally, against reach-through attacks near glass. But it means nobody can get out without a key in a fire, which is why it is restricted on exit doors and why we rarely recommend it in a home.
Do I need a deadbolt if I have a lever handle?
Yes. Levers and knobsets are latches. The deadbolt is what resists force, and a handle on its own is not a substitute.
Are high-security cylinders worth it?
On the right door, yes. They resist drilling and picking and the keys cannot be copied at a hardware store. On a door with a weak frame, the money is better spent on the frame first.
My UPVC back door needs lifting to lock. What is that?
The multipoint gearbox is wearing out. Ignoring it usually ends with a door that will not open at all and a mechanism that has to be drilled out. It is much cheaper to address early.
Can you fit hardware I bought myself?
Yes, and we will tell you honestly before we start whether what you bought suits the door. If it does not, you will hear that rather than find out later.
Older homes
Mortise Locks And Why You Should Not Rip Them Out
Common downtown, around Port Whitby, and in the Baldwin Street core of Brooklin.
A mortise lock is a rectangular steel case set into a deep pocket cut into the edge of the door, combining the latch and the deadbolt in one heavy unit. They were the standard on quality doors for most of the twentieth century, and a great many Whitby homes still have the originals.
The usual advice a homeowner gets is to replace it. That advice is usually wrong, and it is expensive. Fitting a modern cylindrical deadbolt into a door that was cut for a mortise leaves a large void in the door edge that has to be filled, and the result is both weaker and uglier than what was there. A mortise pocket is a large hole; you cannot un-cut it.
Meanwhile the lock itself is very often repairable. The cases were built to be opened and serviced: springs, followers and levers can be replaced, and the cylinder can usually be swapped or rekeyed independently of the case. A mortise lock that feels stiff or drops its handle is frequently a fifteen-minute service, not a replacement.
What does need attention on these doors is everything around the lock. Century-home frames have moved, strikes are often original and shallow, and the jamb has been painted so many times that the reveal has changed. Fix the alignment and reinforce the strike and an original mortise lock will comfortably outlast anything you could buy to replace it.
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