The Green Crust Behind the Handle
Pull an old handle off an external door and sometimes there is a nasty surprise underneath.
Green and blue crust packed around the brass parts. A bit powdery in places, harder and thicker in others. Against a white uPVC door it can easily look like mould.
It isn’t.
The colour comes from the metal. Brass contains copper, and copper produces those distinctive blue-green deposits as it corrodes.
Bournemouth Adds Salt to the Mix
Door hardware already has a rough life outside.
Rain gets around it. Condensation forms. Temperatures change constantly. Handles get soaked and dry out again.
Bournemouth properties have salt to deal with as well.
Sea air gets into tiny places. It settles around cylinders, screws and handles, including areas nobody sees until the hardware comes apart.
Moisture behind a handle plate can hang around for ages. The outside of the door looks completely dry while the metal hidden underneath is still sitting damp.
That is where the mess starts.
A Door Lock Is Full of Different Metals
Strip the hardware down and you’ll rarely find one material throughout.
There might be brass around the cylinder, ordinary steel screws, zinc-based cast components and stainless parts all sitting close together.
Add salty moisture and those different metals don’t always live happily together.
The evidence looks different depending on the material. Brass can develop the blue-green crust. Exposed steel goes orange and flaky. Zinc-based components often produce a pale, chalky corrosion.
At first it just looks ugly.
Leave it going and things start getting awkward. Screws seize. Moving parts get rough. Cylinders become harder to remove. A screw that should take ten seconds to undo can end up with virtually no usable head left.
Get It Apart Before It Gets Worse
Take accessible handles and covers off carefully and have a proper look underneath.
Blue-green deposits around brass are easy to spot. Check the screws at the same time. Orange rust, white powder and heavy pitting all tell their own story.
Water marks behind the handle are worth paying attention to as well. Something has allowed moisture to sit there.
Light contamination on otherwise sound hardware can sometimes be cleaned away. Dry everything properly afterwards and only use lubricants or protective products suitable for that particular mechanism.
Don’t fill a lock case with whatever grease happens to be sitting in the garage. Some products hold dirt and others don’t play nicely with plastics, seals or factory coatings.
Badly pitted, seized or weakened hardware has already gone beyond a clean-up. Replace it with parts suited to the door and its exposure.
Trade Counter Supplies
Coastal air gets into door hardware long before most people realise anything is happening.
Bring the old cylinder, handle or lock parts into DWC Trade Windows at 78 Alma Road, Bournemouth. We can help identify what you’ve got and find suitable replacement hardware for the repair.
Call us on 01202 533126 for help with replacement door locks, handles and hardware in Bournemouth.
