The directory, A to Z
Everything we fit, fix or talk people out of, in alphabetical order.
Twenty-four entries under fourteen letters. The pale letters are the ones nobody has asked us about yet.
A
B
Body corporate master keying. One extra key that opens every door, held by the building manager, and only if the committee minutes say so. Quoted at survey.
PricesBrass slot restoration. Original brass fronts kept on the street side, new locking steel bodies hidden behind them. Slower. Worth it.
Work
C
- Prices
Cam locks. The small cylinder lock on every letterbox door, and the part that decides whether a bank is secure or merely tidy. A cam lock is a barrel with a keyway, a stack of thin spring-loaded wafers inside it, and a flat steel tongue on the back, the cam, which swings behind the frame lip when you turn the key. Replacing one costs $38 a door plus the $95 call-out, which covers the first half hour, and half an hour usually covers about six doors.
Start by counting the wafers. The cheapest locks have three or four, and often one of those is a dummy that does nothing at all, which leaves a few dozen possible keys spread across thousands of letterboxes. That is how a key from one building ends up opening a door in another. We fit locks with five wafers or more, keyed to differ, so each door in a bank has its own key and the building next door has nothing that fits.
Then look at the length. Letterbox doors are thin steel, often barely over a millimetre. A 16mm barrel sits snug through that, nut tight against the back, cam close to the lip. A 20mm barrel in the same door needs packing washers to take up the slack, the washers work loose over a year of slamming, and the cam ends up hanging a couple of millimetres short of the frame. A couple of millimetres is exactly the width of a flat screwdriver.
There are three cheap locks we take out more often than any others, and we will describe them rather than name them, because all three open with a butter knife, each in its own way. The first has a soft die-cast cam, so a knife slid into the door gap bends it clear of the lip. The second has wafers so loose in the barrel that the same knife, pressed flat into the keyway and twisted, turns it like a key. The third holds its barrel with a thin spring clip instead of a nut, and the knife simply pops the whole lock back into the box.
Which is why Hamish carries a tray of spare cam locks in the ute the way some people carry jump leads: 16mm and 20mm, straight cams and cranked cams, a row keyed to differ and a few keyed alike for owners who hold two flats and want one key for both letterboxes. Most break-in call-outs end with the door rehung and a new lock in it before we leave. The old locks go in a bucket in the back. It is a large bucket.
Cluster banks. Eight to twenty-four doors on one frame, for blocks where the mail lands in a porch rather than a lobby.
Quoted at survey
D
F
Front-loading banks. The usual kind. Posties and residents use the same face, every door locks. 3 to 5 weeks from deposit.
Prices
G
Galvanised backs. Galvanised rear bodies on any bank that faces weather, because the back rusts first and nobody ever looks there.
Quoted at survey
K
Keyed-alike sets. Two or more letterbox doors on one key, for an owner with two flats in the block. Handy, right up until that key goes walkabout.
Quoted at survey
L
N
O
Oversize slots for A4 and magazines. A wider, taller slot than the standard one, so A4 envelopes arrive flat instead of folded in three. Quoted at survey.
Quoted at survey
P
Pedestal mounts. A freestanding steel pedestal bolted to a concrete pad at the gate of a block. For buildings only, never single houses.
Quoted at survey
R
Rear-loading banks for buildings with a mail room. Residents see only the fronts. The posties load from behind a locked door.
WorkRecessed wall installs. The bank sits flush in a framed opening. Fire walls wait for the building's engineer to sign off the penetration.
WorkRemoval of old banks. $22 a door. Out the same morning the new one goes in, so nobody's mail is homeless overnight.
PricesRepairs after break-ins. $95 call-out, then $78 an hour, parts at cost plus 15 percent. Saturday mornings too, to secure the doors.
Contact
T
Timber-look fascias. A laminated timber-look face on a steel body. $260 a door, 8 to 10 weeks to make.
Prices
W
Wall-mount banks. Surface-mounted on a solid wall. A 24-door bank takes one working day, a 60-door wall takes two.
PricesWeather hoods. A folded steel hood over a bank in an open entry, so the mail stays dry in a southerly. Quoted at survey.
Quoted at survey
- Banks
- From $185 a door, supplied and installed
- Lockers
- From $9,800 installed
- Survey
- No charge across urban Auckland
- Start
- hello@safemailsys.com
Plates 10 to 05, newest first
Recently fitted
Six banks from the last few years, drawn from our survey sheets with the real number of doors across and down. One door in each is drawn open, so you can see it is a door.
All ten on the Work page-
Pl. 10
Hobsonville48 doors and 18 lockers, anodised, 2 days -
Pl. 09
Ellerslie40 doors, timber-look, 1.5 days -
Pl. 08
New Lynn60 doors, powder coat, rear-loading, 2 days -
Pl. 07
Takapuna84 doors and 12 lockers, anodised, 2 days -
Pl. 06
Mt Albert20 doors, powder coat, 1 day -
Pl. 05
Onehunga32 doors, anodised, 1.5 days
Four Steps
How a job runs
A standard bank in powder coat or anodised is usually on the wall four to six weeks after the survey. Timber-look takes longer because the fascias do.
- 01
Survey
We come and measure the wall, the old bank and the door count. No charge across urban Auckland, $150 travel north of Ōrewa or south of Pukekohe.
- 02
Quote within 3 working days
Written, priced per door, with the finish, the lead time and anything awkward about the wall spelled out before anyone commits.
- 03
40 percent deposit
That orders the doors and starts the clock: 3 to 5 weeks for powder coat or anodised, 8 to 10 for timber-look, about 6 for a parcel locker.
- 04
Install day
Old bank out first thing, new bank in, numbered and keyed before the posties' round. Three keys per door handed over, balance due within 14 days.
Next
Per-door rates for all three finishes, both parcel lockers, lead times and terms, set out before anyone has to ask.
Next: Prices, every rate on one page