Security door forced, jammed or dead-locked shut in Wollongong: the first hour.
If anyone might still be in the house, stay outside and call triple zero first. Once it is safe: photograph the door, the frame and the ground around it from three angles before you touch anything, and get an event number from NSW Police online for the claim. Do not sweep up cut mesh or bin the bent frame. Lock the internal glass or timber door behind the screen, drop a bolt or screw a temporary hasp into sound timber, and move keys, wallets and car keys away from the letter slot and the door reveal. Then read the triage table below before you ring anyone out after hours.
We are screen and door installers, not a 24 hour locksmith or glazier. If your house is physically open right now, at night, the correct first call is an emergency locksmith or an emergency glazier who can board up and secure the opening tonight. We pick the job up the next business day, measure, and fit the permanent door or screen. Being straight about that saves you paying us a call-out to tell you the same thing.
The first hour, in order
- Safety before evidence. Nobody goes inside a house that has been broken into until you are certain it is empty. Wait in a car or at a neighbour’s.
- Photograph before you tidy. Wide shot of the whole opening, one of the damaged lock or torn mesh, one of the frame and hinge side, and one of any tool marks on the jamb. Insurers and police both want them, and you cannot recreate them once the door is off.
- Get the police event number. Non-urgent property crime in NSW is reported through the NSW Police Community Portal online, and the event number it issues is what your insurer will ask for. If the offender may still be nearby, that is a triple zero call, not an online report.
- Make it secure, not pretty. A locked internal door, a barrel bolt, a temporary hasp and padlock, or a length of dowel in the sliding door track are all acceptable overnight. Nobody expects a finished repair at 9pm.
- Keep the damaged parts. The cut mesh, the snapped cylinder, the bent frame. An assessor who can see the failure mode settles faster, and a cylinder that snapped cleanly is evidence of a specific attack method rather than wear.
- Write down the time. When you found it, when police were told, when you made it safe, who attended. A three line note on your phone is worth more than memory six weeks later.
Triage table: what it is, how urgent, what it costs
Symptoms we get called to across Wollongong, Corrimal, Fairy Meadow, Figtree, Unanderra and Dapto, with an honest urgency rating. Prices are 2026 Illawarra rates, supplied and fitted, in business hours.
| Symptom | What it usually means | How urgent | Typical cost to put right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mesh cut, frame jemmied, lock will not engage | A forced entry attempt. The barrier has done its job and is finished. | Now | Temporary secure $150 to $300, replacement door $900 to $1,400 |
| Deadlock turns but the door still pulls open | The frame has dropped or the keeper has pulled out of a soft or rotted jamb. | Now if it is the only lock | Realign and new keeper $120 to $260 |
| Key spins freely and nothing moves | Broken cam or a stripped lock body, common on cheap single-point locks after 6 to 8 years on the coast. | Now | Security door lock supplied and fitted $140 to $280 |
| Sliding security door off its track or will not close | Collapsed rollers, or sand and grit packed into the bottom track. Standard in beach streets. | Now if it will not close, otherwise this week | Roller set and track clean $150 to $280, new bottom track $220 to $400 |
| Bedroom or exit screen will not release from inside | Seized, painted-over or wrongly fitted egress catch. This is a life safety fault, not an inconvenience. | Now | Free or replace the egress catch $90 to $180 |
| Glass sliding door smashed behind the screen | Glazing failure or forced entry. The house is open regardless of the screen. | Now | Emergency board up $220 to $450, new toughened panel $450 to $900 |
| Lock cylinder snapped off or missing | A snapping attack on a cheap euro cylinder, or a cylinder that has corroded solid and sheared. | Now | New cylinder and lock $140 to $300, re-key a set $90 to $180 |
| Screen door bangs in the wind and will not latch | Failed closer or hinge screws pulled out of the jamb. Gets worse fast in an easterly. | This week | Closer or hinge replacement $80 to $180 |
| Storm has bent or blown out a window screen | East coast low or hail damage. Usually an insurable event, so photograph it before removing it. | This week | Refit and re-tension $90 to $160, replacement screen $180 to $480 |
| Dog has torn the flyscreen mesh at the bottom corner | Insect entry only. On a correctly fixed security screen the barrier is unaffected. | Can wait | Flyscreen re-mesh $35 to $70, stainless security re-mesh $180 to $320 |
| Rust bleeding at the welds after a storm | Tea staining. Salt deposit sitting on stainless, nearly always surface only. | Can wait, rinse it | Free with a hose, professional clean $60 to $120 per door |
| Door drags on the tile and scrapes | Hinge wear or building movement. Annoying, not a security failure. | Can wait | Hinge pack or adjustment $90 to $150 |
If you are not sure which row you are in, the test is simple: can the house be locked tonight with what you have. If yes, it is not a now job. See signs your security door needs replacing for the slower failures.
After hours versus waiting until the next business day
This is the decision that costs people the most money on the worst night of their year. An after hours attendance in the Illawarra typically carries a $180 to $300 call-out before a single part is fitted, and the tradesperson who comes at 10pm is carrying a van stock item, not your made-to-measure door. In business hours the same attendance is $90 to $150 for the first half hour, then roughly $95 to $140 an hour. On a made-to-measure product the after hours premium buys you a temporary fix either way.
So the honest rule is this. Pay the after hours premium when the opening cannot be closed at all: a smashed glass slider, a front door with no working lock and no second door behind it, or a ground floor opening in a house that will be empty overnight. Do not pay it when there is a lockable internal door behind the screen, when the failure is a screen and the main door is sound, or when the damaged opening is upstairs or behind a locked gate. That single decision is worth $150 to $250 on most jobs.
One local wrinkle worth knowing. Wollongong sits on a narrow coastal strip and a lot of the after hours trades that service it come down the M1 from Sydney’s south. If a quote includes travel, ask whether the call-out already covers it, because a $180 call-out plus travel can land at $280 before anyone opens a toolbox.
Secure tonight, permanent fix this week
Send the photos and your suburb through the form and we will come and measure. Written quote within two business days, mesh specced to your distance from the surf.
What makes the damage worse, and what is genuinely dangerous
Things that turn a small bill into a big one
- Forcing a sliding door that has jumped its track. The bottom track is soft aluminium. Once it is folded over, you are buying a track at $220 to $400 or a whole door at $700 to $1,600 instead of a $150 roller set.
- Spraying lubricant into a lock. General purpose spray lubricant carries oil that grabs salt and grit and turns a sticky lock into a seized one within weeks. Dry graphite or a proper lock lubricant only.
- Leaving cut stainless mesh loose. The cut edge will keep tearing in the wind and take the surrounding mesh with it, which is the difference between a re-mesh and a new door.
- Hosing salt off a hot door in the middle of the day. It dries as a concentrated salt film. Rinse in the cool of the morning or evening. Our maintenance schedule sets out the routine.
- Painting over a corroded frame. It seals moisture in, hides the problem from an assessor, and voids most powder coat warranties.
Genuinely dangerous, please do not
- Drilling or cutting fibro. A great many Corrimal, Unanderra and Warrawong homes built from the 1950s to the 1970s have asbestos cement sheeting in walls and window reveals. Do not drill, cut or sand it to fit a screen. Stop and get someone licensed to assess it.
- Removing an egress screen from a bedroom and leaving the opening barred. If you take the release off, the room has no escape route. Read the fire egress rules before you touch a bedroom screen.
- Angle grinders near glass and mesh. Sparks pit toughened glass and embed steel dust in stainless mesh, which then rusts in a line and looks exactly like a product failure.
- Ladders on wet ground after an east coast low. Upstairs screens can wait for a dry day and someone with a fall arrest plan.
- Working near storm-downed wires. Nothing on a screen door is worth going near a fallen line for.
When it is not an emergency at all
Roughly half the urgent calls we take are not urgent, and saying so is cheaper for you than attending. A door that drags, a screen that squeaks, tea staining after a southerly, a torn flyscreen, a stiff lock that still works, a bent flyscreen frame on an upstairs window: none of those leave you exposed tonight. They are Monday jobs, and grouping them into one visit is the single biggest saving available on this kind of work. Four small repairs on one attendance costs roughly $350 to $550 all up. The same four spread across four call-outs costs $500 to $900.
The other genuinely non-urgent case is the door that has simply worn out. A 12 year old perforated aluminium door in a beach street that is chalky, pitted and stiff is at the end of a normal service life, not in crisis. Replacing it well, once, with the right mesh for your street beats three emergency repairs on a door that is finished. If you are weighing that up, the stainless versus aluminium comparison and the service life guide are the two worth reading first.
What to ask whoever attends
- Is the call-out fee credited against the repair if I go ahead.
- Is this a permanent repair or a make safe, and what is the price of the permanent one.
- If you replace the lock, is the new one three point or single point, and does the egress release still work without a key.
- If the mesh is being replaced, what grade is going back in: perforated aluminium, 304 stainless or 316 marine grade.
- Will I get an itemised invoice with your ABN, the parts listed and the labour separated, because an insurer will ask for exactly that.
Common questions on the night
Can a security door be replaced the same day it is forced?
What does an after hours call out cost in Wollongong?
Is a cut or bent security screen worth repairing?
My sliding security door will not close. Is that an emergency?
A bedroom security screen will not open from the inside. How urgent is that?
Should I claim on insurance for one forced security door?
Send the photos and get the permanent repair priced
Tell us what failed and where you are, and we will book a measure and send an itemised written quote within two business days.
Replacing rather than repairing?
We measure across Wollongong, Figtree, Corrimal, Fairy Meadow, Unanderra and Dapto, and spec the mesh to your street rather than to a catalogue.