Access Control in Berkeley

Access control replaces a key you cannot take back with a credential you can switch off from a laptop. A fob for an office suite on Center Street. A keypad on the staff door of a Fourth Street shop. Phone credentials for a small co-op whose buzzer panel has been rewired twice since the seventies and whose board would rather not cut another key. A reader on the pedestrian gate of a studio yard in West Berkeley. A card on a lab door that has to record who went in and when. Campanile Lock & Key fits everything from a single keypad to networked readers with an audit trail.

The survey counts doors and looks at each one's hardware, its frame material and its nearest power. From that comes a recommendation per door: an electric strike where the frame can be cut for one, a magnetic lock where a glass-and-aluminum door has no depth for a strike, a controller sized to the door count with room to add two more, and a credential your staff will actually carry rather than leave in a drawer. Readers, strikes, request-to-exit sensors and wiring go in together with the software, the first users are enrolled while you watch, and you finish the day with an administrator login of your own. At least one door keeps a mechanical override, because a building with no key anywhere in it is a building waiting for a power cut.

Access control is quoted per project. Door count, controller, credential type and the condition of each existing door are what move the number. The written quote separates every door, its hardware, the controller, the credentials and the labor, so nothing is bundled where you cannot see it. The $89 survey visit is counted toward the job. After approval the figure holds; if a door turns out to need new preparation, that is priced and approved before work continues rather than appearing on the invoice at the end.

Call with the door count and the kind of building. A survey is booked and the technician's details arrive by text. The quote follows the walk-through, in writing. Installation is scheduled, the system is tested door by door with a credential in hand and again from the inside against the request-to-exit sensor, and the handover covers adding, removing and scheduling users. Receipt itemized per door, card or tap.