Is Your Door Lock Broken? Here’s How to Easily Replace It

ORLANDO, Fla. – Peggy’s door handle fell off in her hand! It was old and falling apart so we swapped out the lock and the handle for a brand new set. It took about 15 minutes.

If you have a project you’d like Erik to tackle, send us an email at GettingResultsAtHome@wkmg.com and next week Erik might just show up at your door!

We purchased:

Exterior door lock set

We brought with us:

Phillips head screwdriver

Flat-head screwdriver

We recommend:

Electric screwdriver

Step 1

Take out the old lock. First, remove the door handle. Sometimes you might need to push a release mechanism holding the handle in place, other times you might need a hex key to loosen a screw holding the handle in place, or in our case we just removed the screws holding the inside and outside handles together. Then, remove the deadbolt turn knob by removing the screws. Then remove the latchbolts by taking out the screws in the end of the door.

Step 2

Install the new lock. Do everything in reverse: first slide in the latchbolts, then screw them into the end of the door. Make sure the right latchbolt goes into the right hole and make sure they’re facing up (usually it says “up”). Then screw together the deadbolt knob. Then screw together the door handles. Note, putting the handles and deadbolt latch in place might be tricky – look inside them to see the pins and ridges to make sure you’re aligning them with the hardware in the door. You might have to jiggle or wiggle or spin the handles and latch to make everything slide together, but take you time, it will work.

Step 3

Tighten everything down… but not too tight. Sometimes tightening the screws too much will make the handle or deadbolt knob difficult to turn.

You just got results at home!