Privacy inside your home starts with your door locks. Specifically designed to allow you to quickly and easily lock a room, door knobs with holes help you keep your private spaces private. Though they’re primarily privacy-focused for bedrooms, bathrooms, and other interior spaces, privacy locks give you the security in knowing that your room is kept safe from unwelcome guests. Keep reading to learn how to unlock a privacy door handle, from the interior and exterior of the door.
Types of Locks
1. Push-Button Privacy Locks
A privacy lock can typically be unlocked one of three ways, one of which is the push-button. Learning how to unlock a door knob with a hole is exactly how it sounds with this lock, operating through the use of a button that engages a lock through pushing. The door lock is disengaged by turning the locking mechanism.
2. Turnbutton Privacy Locks
You'll also come across the turn button function when researching how to unlock a door knob with a hole. This method engages the door lock by turning the tab on the door handle. The lock is then disengaged when you turn the button in the opposite direction.
Emergency Key
Both turn-button and push-button privacy locks can be locked and unlocked from the outside using what’s commonly known as an emergency key. These keys are often made of metal and are narrow and solid in order to fit into the small hole of the door handle or knob. To use an emergency key, you insert the slotted end into the center of the lever or knob, then turn it clockwise or counterclockwise to lock/unlock the door.
Alternative Unlocking Methods
Since accidents happen, it’s always possible that someone in your home can get locked in or out of a room with a privacy lock. Need to know how to unlock a door knob with a hole in these scenarios? No need to fret because you have multiple easy options at your fingertips.
Household objects are your best bet for unlocking your privacy lock, particularly those that are small and sturdy, like your emergency key. One of the most straightforward tools to use is a screwdriver. Insert the screwdriver into the hole and slowly rotate until it fits into the groove and unlocks the door; for push-button locks, insert the tool until it reaches the lock mechanism.
Need to know how to unlock a privacy door handle without a screwdriver on hand? Other narrow household objects such as a small pin, paper clip, or bamboo skewer can be used in the same capacity as a screwdriver or emergency key. Even your grandmother’s knitting needle can do the trick. You just need something small enough to fit in the hole and sturdy enough that it won’t break when you apply some pressure.
Increase Home Privacy with Door Lock Direct
Ensuring you know how to unlock a door knob with a hole is crucial to maintaining your access to your private space, including in emergencies. For professional help and guidance, reach out to the passionate team of experts at Door Locks Direct. Explore our privacy locksets and more of our direct door hardware today to increase security inside and outside of your home!
About the Author
Richard Schoech
With an extensive background in door hardware, Richard Schoech, the owner of Door Locks Direct, has plenty of expertise in ensuring safety and security everywhere from offices to apartment buildings and personal residences. Offering a diverse range of brands, styles, and finishes on handles, deadbolts, smart locks and more, Door Locks Direct caters to every requirement.
FAQs
So if you ever get locked out with one of these, just get a small, thin. flat screwdriver and get into that slot, turn it to the right or left, you'll feel it. and that'll get that door open again for you.
How to unlock a door with a pinhole lock? ›
So if you ever get locked out with one of these, just get a small, thin. flat screwdriver and get into that slot, turn it to the right or left, you'll feel it. and that'll get that door open again for you.
How do you pick a door lock with a hole in the knob? ›
Most of the time, all you need to do is jab a paperclip in the hole and push on the locking mechanism. If the doorknob has a slit on the outside handle, a butter knife should do the trick.
What is the little hole on the door knob for? ›
Door knobs come with a special thin screwdriver like key that goes in that hole. It's to turn the screw to remove the plate around it. It's usually a little allen screw.
What is a privacy pin on a door knob? ›
Privacy Function
When you press the privacy pin, the door will be locked and when it is in its default position, the door will be unlocked. Side note—our privacy sets can be disengaged in an emergency by inserting a narrow object (like the end of a paperclip) into the emergency release hole on the exterior rosette.
What is the difference between privacy and entrance door lock? ›
The difference is that an entrance is used on an exterior door and it uses a key to unlock or lock the door from the outside. A privacy is used on a bathroom or bedroom door and can easily be unlocked from the outside by a generic tool, like a bobby/hair pin, small flat head screw driver if necessary.
How do circle locks work? ›
The design of a tubular lock is similar to the pin tumbler lock, in that there are several stacks of pins. The key is a cylinder shape with notches cut around the outer or (rarely) inner edge. Each of these notches depresses a single pin inside the lock to a specific height allowing the lock cylinder to turn freely.
What is the difference between a bathroom lock and a privacy lock? ›
Bathroom locks are more modern than privacy locking mechanism as it also offers a lock release mechanism from the outside in case of emergencies.
How to unlock a privacy door knob? ›
Both turn-button and push-button privacy locks can be locked and unlocked from the outside using what's commonly known as an emergency key. These keys are often made of metal and are narrow and solid in order to fit into the small hole of the door handle or knob.
How to unlock door with hole push button without key? ›
Generally, you can insert a small “watchmaker” screwdriver (one with a straight blade - not a philips) into the hole and turn it to unlock the door. These kinds of door locks are designed for places like bathrooms and bedrooms where the door might be locked for privacy reasons and not for security.
Use Two Hairpins To Pick The Lock On Your Doorknob
- Bend open one hairpin until the ends are apart by ninety degrees. ...
- Take the plastic pieces off of the end. ...
- Bend one tip at a forty-five-degree angle. ...
- Bend the other end of the pin into the handle. ...
- Grab the second hairpin.
Stick the flat end of the pin into the top of the lock and bend it. Stick the pin in about 1 centimetre (0.39 in), then fold the rest the bobby pin until it's flush against the face of the doorknob. This will bend the tip at an angle. You'll use the bent end of the pin to disengage the pins in the lock.
How to open a door when the mechanism is broken? ›
One simple lock picking technique involves sliding a rigid card (like a credit card or driver's licence) between the door frame and latch, then quickly moving the card upward to force the latch upward and retract it into the door. Repeated tries at different angles eventually connect to lift the lock successfully.
Richard Schoech 