Austin Electric Strike Installation, Retrofit and Repair
The workhorse of commercial access control. Electric strikes let you add controlled entry to the doors you already have, without replacing the lockset or the door.
The Basics
What an Electric Strike Actually Does
An electric strike replaces the fixed metal strike plate on your door frame. That is the plate the latch drops into when the door closes. Swap it for an electric strike and the plate itself can pivot out of the way on command, releasing the door without anyone turning a handle or using a key.
The door hardware stays exactly as it is. The lever, the lockset, the closer, all of it keeps working the way it always has. That is what makes electric strikes the most practical way to bring an existing commercial door under access control, and why they are usually the first thing we recommend when a building already has decent door hardware.
Wire the strike back to a buzzer at reception and the door does the rest. What goes on the wall beside it is a separate decision: a code entry keypad where a shared code is enough, or a card or fob reader where you need a record of who came through.
The Detail That Matters
Fail-Secure or Fail-Safe
Every electric strike is set up one of two ways, and getting it wrong on the wrong door is the mistake we see most often on systems installed by someone else.
Fail-Secure
The strike stays locked when power is lost. Current is applied to release it. This is the standard choice for exterior doors and any opening where you want the building to stay locked in an outage. People inside can still get out mechanically by using the handle.
Fail-Safe
The strike unlocks when power is lost. It needs current to stay locked. This suits doors that must open freely in an emergency, and doors on a route where the building's exit plan requires it.
Fire code, your insurer and the way people actually move through the building all feed into this decision, and it can be different for every door on the same site. Worth knowing that magnetic locks do not offer this choice, because they release whenever power is lost. On doors fitted with panic hardware, the exit device and the strike also have to be specified together. We walk you through it door by door before anything gets fitted, and we work with your fire and life safety requirements rather than around them.
Where They Work Best
Doors We Fit Electric Strikes To
Office Suites and Front Doors
Add a reader or keypad to a glass or timber entrance without touching the existing lockset. Staff badge in, visitors get buzzed through from reception.
Back of House and Stockrooms
Keep stock, cash handling and staff-only areas restricted while the door still functions normally for anyone with access.
Server Rooms and IT Closets
A single controlled door on a room that needs a record of who went in and when. Small job, large risk if it is left open.
Multi-Tenant Buildings
Shared entrances where each tenant needs their own access without their own set of keys, and where credentials have to be turned off the day a tenant leaves.
The Service
Install, Retrofit, Repair
We fit electric strikes to new installs and retrofit them into existing doors across Austin and Central Texas. That includes matching the strike to your frame type and lockset, running the wiring, fitting the power supply, tying it into your reader or keypad, and testing every door before we leave.
When a strike stops releasing, buzzes constantly, or the door stops latching properly, that is usually a power supply, an alignment or a wiring fault rather than the strike itself. We diagnose it properly instead of replacing parts and hoping. Emergency service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you are not sure what you have, book a free security audit. We will look at every door, tell you what is fitted, what it is doing, and what it should be doing.
Common Questions
Electric Strike FAQs
In most cases yes. Electric strikes are designed to replace the strike plate in the frame, so the door, the lever and the lockset stay as they are. What matters is the frame type, the latch and whether there is a route for the wiring. We check all three during the free audit before quoting. Where a door has no frame to work with, which is common on glass storefronts, an electromagnetic lock is usually the answer instead.
A fail-secure strike stays locked when the power goes out. A fail-safe strike unlocks when the power goes out. Exterior and security doors are usually fail-secure. Doors that need to open freely in an emergency are usually fail-safe. The right answer is different for different doors in the same building, and your fire and life safety requirements are part of that decision.
A buzzing strike is normally running on AC power, which produces an audible hum by design. Strikes running on DC power operate quietly. If a strike that used to be silent has started buzzing or clicking, something has changed in the power supply and it is worth having it looked at.
It depends on the door, the frame, the hardware already fitted, the wiring route and what the strike is being connected to. A single interior door with a nearby power source is a very different job to an exterior door in a masonry frame. We quote per door after a free site audit, with clear pricing and no hidden fees.
Yes. We service and repair access control hardware regardless of who installed it or what brand it is, and we work with equipment from all the major manufacturers.
“Zach came out today and fixed 2 electric door strikes at our HOA pool which are part of our access control system. These doors are set in concrete and not easy to deal with. Nonetheless Zach did an excellent job on both and I was very impressed with his work.”Robert Golla, Google review
Ready to Secure Your Doors?
Tell us about your property and what you need. We will put together a clear, no-obligation quote. There is no charge and no pressure.