New Locks for Dummy Homeowners

front door lockset

When it comes to home safety and security, there are tasks that simply should not be left to total amateurs. One of those tasks is replacing the lock on your front door, or on you back door, for that matter. While we agree with HomeSteady.com's Julie Richards about when you might want to change your locks, we sure wish they'd found someone more qualified to write their post, "How to Change Your House Door Locks."¹

Oh, Richards got her introduction right, especially the bit about changing entry locks...

"...when they are worn or broken, you move into a new house or your keys are lost or stolen."

That's especially so if you move into a new house: you never know whether the previous owner's sleazoid cousin Bubba still has a key. Unfortunately, after that point in her post, Julie pretty much got the rest of it wrong. Well, not necessarily wrong, just so clumsily written that it's pretty obvious the woman has never set a screwdriver to a latch in her life. Here's some of the evidence:

• "Remove the screws that hold the protective ring in place, if there is one." – That "ring" is actually called a rosette, and chances are pretty good it's not held in place with screws. And shouldn't you have mentioned that it's on the interior side of the door? Sure, you should have...
• "Locate the screws holding the door knob together on the inside of the door." – Ummm, just what does that mean?

• "Remove the small screws holding the plate and latch mechanism in place." – That's actually the bolt, Julie
• "Line up the through-bolt of the door knob with the fabricated hole in the lock bolt. Generally, there are two or more holes in the lock bolt to standardize the fit of the lock into a variety of doors. Choose the hole with the tightest fit for the knob." – We aren't really certain (since she clearly doesn't know proper names), but we think maybe she's talking about the backset here? Maybe?

Without going into too much detail, we also note that she forgot to mention installing the rosette. Whatever the case, Richards did a monumentally stupid job. Why? Because those are instructions for an interior lockset, like you'd find on a bathroom door. She doesn't mention deadbolts, locksets with large handles, or any of several other complications (see image); just replacing the knob on your bedroom door. What's even more interesting is that none of Julie's references include instructions for changing a lock; so where did she get this bull? That's often a problem with our Dumbass of the Day winners: they use information from a website that even Demand Media wouldn't let them cite!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   homesteady.com/how-4749428-change-house-door-locks.html

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