When establishing a key system, one of the first decisions to make is the type of core you want to use.  From there, you can go onto deciding on the system type, additional options, policies, and procedures.  However, all of that starts with the basics – do you want a standard core or an interchangeable core?

If you have to rekey your facility with any level of frequency, we recommend going with interchangeable cores.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.  Watch this video to see why we make this recommendation for your key system.

Key System: Types of Cores

Standard Cores

A standard core (shown on the left in the video) is what you are used to seeing in your home.  It’s a small round core inserted into a cylinder that is directly attached to the lock.  They are less expensive than interchangeable cores but have a few downsides in comparison.

One of the main reasons people use a key system is to effectively managing rekeys.  As it turns out, the biggest downside of standard cores is the time and cost involved with rekeys.  Standard cores cannot be rekeyed without disassembling the lock.  This means that a technician has to come on-site to physically rekey each lock.

As you witnessed in the video, disassembling a lock takes a decent amount of time.  It took three minutes and six seconds to rekey just one lock.  Add up the time it takes to rekey all the locks in your facility that would need to be rekeyed, and you’re looking at a hefty bill.

Interchangeable Cores

An interchangeable core (shown on the right in the video) looks like a figure eight and is inserted into a cylinder using a special key called a control key.  The beauty of using interchangeable cores for your key system is that they can easily be rekeyed without a technician.

As demonstrated in the video, in order to rekey an interchangeable core, a person needs four things: the control key for the existing core, the new core, the control key for the new core, and new keys.  All of this is provided by the key system vendor.  The rekey process is simple: 1) remove the old core using the corresponding control key, 2) insert the new core using its corresponding control key, and 3) test the new keys in the core and distribute the new keys.

This process is incredibly fast and easy.  It only took 20.3 seconds in this video.  Think about the savings of this versus having a technician come out to rekey all of your locks.  While interchangeable cores are more costly up front, if you have to rekey your facility they more than pay for themselves in the long run.

For more information on key systems in general, check out this comprehensive key system article or download our white paper.