Your Advice - Lock Maintenance Schedule

[YoungUSSuper]

Hello, everyone. I'm a new super to an office and apt building and I want to try to do things that weren't really maintained. I was hoping you guys could give me some advice on how to maintain all the locks within the building. I've read a lot of the posts in this forum and I've listed below what I could figure out. Please let me know if anything is wrong. I also had some general questions I was hoping you guys could answer.

CLEANING LOCKS

Dissolve drit and grime with penetrating liquid (eg. PB Blaster)
Flush it out with Brakleen (brake cleaner) using gloves
Wait 10 minutes to dry.
Lubricate with 3in1 Lock Dry Lube.

QUICK REPAIR

Squirt a small amount of Tri-Flow.

REGULAR MAINTENANCE

Lubricate one per year for normal traffic. (Up to 4 times as year for hundreds of daily users.)


QUESTIONS
- The locks haven't been cleaned and lubricated in I don't know how long. Would just lubricating them be ok or should I expect to disassemble all the locks and clean them? Or should I just disassemble the ones that are hard to turn?
- When I clean these locks, can I just squirt penetrating oil into the lock directly or should I disassemble them first?
- Should locks be regularly disassembled for cleaning (eg. every 10 years)?

[billdeserthills]

I would use a lil dry lube or graphite and work it in using the key
most oil/lube and spray lubricants contain oil, which attracts dust & dirt so I steer clear of them,
unless I'm picking open a lock, then it gets a shot of wd-40

[MBI]

And no matter which kind of lock lube you use (wet, dry, silicone, teflon, etc etc etc there are a million threads about this on the forum), make sure you carry a big rag or a roll of paper towels with you. Maybe some Windex, depending on the circumstances. It's ugly and unprofessional looking to leave a bunch of crud, oil, graphite or whatever flecked around the lock or dripping down out of the keyway when you're finished with things.

Be ready to catch the mess when you clean and lube, and make sure the door looks nice when you're finished as well.

[Jacob Morgan]

Depending on the type of brake cleaner you are thinkng of, be careful that it will not damage the paint or varnish on the doors if some gets on them. Some brake cleaners have perchlorethelyne in them, which is a good cleaner, but something you'd be better off using outside where there is good ventilation. Unless someone else has been oiling the locks I'm not sure that I would use brake cleaner on them.

I'm not a locksmith, but it seems to me that you might have more problems from hinges sagging, set screws or tail pieces coming loose on mortise cylinders, door closers not adjusted right, problems with fire doors and so on than you would from a lack of lubrication in locks. If you list what sorts of locksets and doors you have maybe people with experience with those locks and doors could suggest what kind of preventative maintenance would make sense, maybe some things you could do and some things you might be better off bringing in a professional to look after.