Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Meet the Long Beach Team Behind Novak Lock & Security Long Beach
Every lock we touch in Long Beach gets the same treatment: a written price before we start, a photo record when we leave, and a technician who answers questions without looking at their phone. Our crew has been together long enough to know which apartment complexes near Alamitos Beach still run original Kwikset SmartKey cylinders from 2012, and which commercial buildings on Pine Avenue need Medeco restricted-keyway upgrades to satisfy their insurance riders. We’re not a rotating door of subcontractors. These are the people who show up.
Our People
Daniel Novak, Owner & Lead Technician
Daniel started picking locks in 2002 because a landlord in Belmont Shore shorted him on a deposit and he figured he should understand how the hardware worked before he argued about it. That curiosity turned into a trade, and the trade turned into Novak Lock & Security. These days he still runs emergency calls at 2 a.m. when the volume backs up, and he personally reviews every photo record before it goes to the customer. He’s factory-authorized on Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy, which means he can order restricted keyways that big-box locksmiths can’t even source. His one-liner, usually delivered while disassembling a failed deadbolt: “I’ve seen this exact cylinder fail in three Long Beach buildings, and every time it was installed by the same handyman who watched one YouTube video.” He lives in the city, votes in the city, and has strong opinions about which taco spots are still worth it.
Marcus T., Senior Installer
Marcus joined us in 2017 after eight years running commercial hardware for a property management group that oversaw forty-seven buildings between Downtown Long Beach and Bixby Knolls. He knows the California Building Code chapter on door hardware by memory, which matters more than you’d think when a fire marshal tags an access-control installation for egress compliance. Marcus handles our commercial master-key systems and ADA-compliant lever retrofits, and he’s the one we send when a business needs a full suite of Schlage Primus XP cylinders keyed to a single hierarchy. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles and has been known to fabricate custom strike-plate shims from aluminum stock when the factory part doesn’t quite fit a 1920s door frame in Bluff Heights.
Elena R., Service Coordinator
Elena answers the phones. More importantly, she keeps the phones from becoming the weak link that kills every other promise. When you call Novak Lock & Security at 11 p.m. because your key snapped off in the deadbolt on Ocean Boulevard, Elena picks up live, confirms your location, and quotes a firm price before she dispatches anyone. She’s been doing this since 2019, and she knows which Long Beach neighborhoods have parking restrictions after 6 p.m., which apartment managers keep spare keys on file, and which commercial accounts need a certificate of insurance emailed before the technician crosses the threshold. She tracks every job to completion and follows up the next day on anything that felt off. Her desk has a framed photo of her grandmother’s 1950s hardware store in Wilmington, which is where she learned that the person who answers the phone is the person who sets the tone for everything that follows.
Javier K., Apprentice Technician
Javier came to us in 2023 through a trade program at Long Beach City College, where he finished top of his cohort in mechanical lock theory and then realized he didn’t know how to talk to a customer who was locked out and panicking. We’re teaching him both. He shadows Marcus on commercial installs and Daniel on emergency calls, and he’s already proficient at rekeying Schlage and Kwikset residential cylinders in the field. His specialty is becoming our go-to for smart-lock integrations, the kind where a customer wants a Yale Assure Lock 2 to talk to their existing Ring system without creating a security hole you could drive a truck through. Javier grew up in North Long Beach, still lives there, and can tell you which blocks have seen enough package theft to justify a mailbox lock upgrade to a high-security Abloy Protec2.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard isn’t a slogan we slap on the van. It’s a documented framework with numbered clauses, and our crew operates under it whether the job is a single rekey in Signal Hill or a full access-control buildout at a medical office on Pacific Coast Highway. Haven Standard Clause 1 governs pricing: the dispatcher quotes it, the technician honors it, and the invoice matches it. No exceptions since 2002. Clause 4 requires the photo record, timestamped and delivered. Clause 7 is the 365-Day Done Right Promise, which means if a deadbolt we installed drags because the door settled, we come back and fix it without a conversation about whose fault it was.
Every technician on this page is background-checked, uniformed, and trained to the same documented procedures. The customer in Long Beach gets the same written price guarantee, the same photo documentation, and the same warranty as a customer at any Haven Standard location in California. The difference is the local knowledge: which coastal humidity corrodes cheaper latchbolts faster, which building managers on the Peninsula require 24-hour notice for after-hours access, and where the parking is impossible during the Grand Prix. That’s what the team brings. The standard is what keeps it consistent.
Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security Long Beach, serving Long Beach since 2002.