My neighbor finally showed me why my gate lock kept failing

I had this padlock on my backyard gate that kept getting stuck in the rain. My neighbor Bob saw me fighting with it last Tuesday and said "you're using a residential lock on a commercial gate, that's your problem." He pointed out how the cheap zinc body was swelling in the moisture. I swapped it for a brass bodied lock from the hardware store for $12, and it has worked smooth through the last three storms. Has anyone else had a lock fail because of something simple like the wrong metal for the weather?

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2 Comments

emmag403mo ago

Is it really that big of a deal though? I mean, a little rust never killed anyone. You could just bang it with a hammer a couple times and it would probably pop open.

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violafox3mo ago

Man, my buddy had a similar thing with his shed lock. Rusted shut after one winter, had to cut the whole thing off.

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