How to Open a Locked Door with a Screwdriver [Simple Guide]

How to Open a Locked Door with a Screwdriver

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Being locked out of your home or even your bathroom is very irritating. The reasons may vary. However, the fact stays the same. Knowing how to open a locked door using a screwdriver is an indispensable tool that you must obtain.

So how to open a locked door using a screwdriver? Throughout this article, we will do our best to illustrate the best ways of doing so while also giving you some tips.

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Safety and Damage

Before discussing all the methods of unlocking your door using a screwdriver, you must, first of all, know that your safety is of top priority. You should also know that if you are going to try to open wooden doors, then there might be some flying splinters.

Therefore it is vital that you wear safety gloves to protect your hands and safety goggles to protect your eyes from any flying splinters. You should also know that you might end up damaging your door or lock, so there will be some damage that you will have to repair later.

Prevention

You should also know that preventing this from happening is the best thing you can do.
You can:

  1. Have spare keys for every door in your home, so you will never be locked up
  2. Keep your home keys in a clear place where you will not forget them, as this is a nice idea to implement
  3. The final thing will be to keep spare keys with any member of your family or a trusted friend

Now that we have known everything there is to know, we will learn of the three Methods of opening a locked door using a screwdriver.

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1. Interior Doors

Screwdrivers are perfect for opening interior doors, especially if these doors have privacy handles. Doors with privacy handles have a tiny hole on their knob. This knob is the part that we will exploit in order to open this door.

All we have to do is to push an eyeglass screwdriver or a really thin flathead screwdriver through the hole as far as we can and then start to twist and turn until you feel a certain tick. This means that your door has opened.

2. Remove the Doorknob

This method is perfect for in-house doors as it will not work on doors that have a high-security level. So you cannot use it to open your front door and let’s be honest if someone sees you trying to remove a front door’s knob, they will not hesitate for a second before calling the cops. This method is also long, and it requires a lot of patience and accuracy when performing it.

This method is all about finding the door knob’s mounting screws as they are what holds the doorknob down and locks it in place. So in some doors, it is much easier to find as you will find it directly in front of you and you can remove it using a head screwdriver.

However, certain doors will require you to remove roses, shanks, and many other parts before you can reach the mounting screws. For these doors, you will need a flathead screwdriver to remove the mounting screws.

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3. Remove the Hinges

This is the hardest and most damaging method of them all, as you will be removing your door’s hinges using both a flathead screwdriver and a hammer as well. You have to wedge or insert the screwdriver between the pin and the bottom knuckle (bottom part of the hinge), then tap the handle of the screwdriver downwards or in a downward motion using the hammer.

Finally, once you feel that the head and pin are loose enough, you can then proceed to remove them. You will have to repeat this process with every single hinge on your door until they have all been removed successfully.

Tip: If the pins do not come out easily and you feel that they are stuck in their place, you can try to force it out using a Phillips head screwdriver.


Highly-Rated Screwdriver

GEARWRENCH 80066

GEARWRENCH 20 Piece Phillips,Slotted,& Torx Screwdriver Set | 80066

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Final Thoughts

Finally, it is safe to say that we all need to learn how to open our doors using screwdrivers, and this highlights the importance of having screwdrivers at home. They are indispensable tools that are good for more than screwing bolts.

So to open a door using a screwdriver, you can either remove its hinges using a hammer or try to remove the doorknob by removing the mounting screws, or finally try to open doors that have privacy handles.