Which locks fit sliding, casement, awning and hung windows, how to secure a basement bedroom without trapping anyone inside it, and where your strata or landlord gets a say.
Lock each window with the hardware its type needs: a pin lock or track stop plus an anti-lift block on sliders, a properly adjusted locking handle on casements and awnings, and a cam latch that actually meets its keeper on hung windows. On a ground-floor or basement bedroom, at least one window has to open without a key or tool, so keyed locks go on the others. In a strata, anything drilled or fixed outside goes past the bylaws first.
Ground floors get the attention because nobody needs a ladder: the townhouse window behind the back fence on Burke Mountain, the basement suite window in its well, the slider you definitely locked before the long weekend.
Police advice is refreshingly unglamorous: the BC RCMP's home security tips start with locking every window whenever you leave, and warn against leaving ladders or tools outside.
In December 2025, Coquitlam RCMP warned residents about roughly 21 break-ins since late November through rear sliding glass doors, mostly between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. at houses backing onto green space, trails or alleys. Those were doors, but the lesson carries over to windows: the back of the house, out of sight, in daylight.
Four common ways a ground-floor window gets beaten:
Add-ons stop the moving sash even when the factory latch gets slipped.
A pin lock is a steel pin through the overlapping frames of the two sashes, so the window can't slide until you pull it out; a second hole gives you a locked airing position. Pin locks are cheap and hard to beat from outside, but they mean drilling, which in a strata or rental needs a yes first, and a pin is one step too many on a bedroom's escape window.
A track stop clamps into the track with a thumbscrew, like the non-marring sliding window locks sold for metal horizontal sliders, holding the window closed or ventilating. No drilling, no key, and it moves out with you. The listing says to finish tightening it with pliers, so it doesn't belong on a window someone may need to climb out of at 3 a.m.
An anti-lift block, or a couple of screws in the upper track above the moving sash, leaves room to slide but not to lift. To test, latch the window and push the moving sash up with your palms. If it rattles upward, it can probably come out.
A dowel cut to fit the bottom track stops the sash sliding and gives the broom that lost its bristles a second career. A charley bar is the hinged version that folds down from the frame. Both suit a slider nobody escapes through, not a bedroom window where someone half-awake has to find and lift the bar first.
If the latch has cracked or no longer meets its keeper, add-ons are a patch, not a fix. Latches are specific to the maker and series, so photograph it and find the maker's name, often on a frame label or the spacer between the panes. Older aluminum sliders can take some hunting, and if the sash has dropped, the rollers are the real problem.
A casement's crank operator only holds the sash where you left it. The lock is the separate lever that pulls the sash tight and hooks it at one or more points; AmesburyTruth's Encore multipoint system for casement and awning windows, for one, works one to three locking points from a single handle. The usual failure is a lever never thrown, or a keeper worked loose. Throw the lever and push each corner of the sash from inside; if one gives, that keeper needs adjusting.
Keyed casement hardware is more specialised. AmesburyTruth's 28 Series custodial lock, for example, takes a special key turned a quarter-turn to lock or unlock the sash: sensible on a service room window, exactly wrong on a bedroom window. The crank operator isn't a lock, keyed or not; it only sets how far the sash opens.
Awnings hinge at the top and usually share casement hardware, so the same corner test applies. Hoppers hinge at the bottom, tip inward and often close with a single latch at the top, which is the whole defence, so make sure it seats fully. A hopper too small to meet the bedroom escape size can take a keyed or pinned lock; a larger basement window may be the escape route.
On hung windows, the cam lock where the sashes meet draws the rails together and stops the lower sash rising. Sash locks fail by loosening: screws strip out of old wooden rails, or the cam stops reaching its keeper. Longer screws or a shimmed keeper fix a lot of it, and keyed sash locks suit windows that aren't anyone's exit.
Here security and escape pull in different directions, and the building code settles it.
Article 9.9.10.1 of the BC Building Code says that unless the suite is sprinklered, every bedroom needs at least one outside window or exterior door that opens from the inside without keys, tools or special knowledge, and without removing sashes or hardware. The window must give an unobstructed opening of at least 0.35 m² with no dimension under 380 mm, stay open without being propped, and, if it opens into a window well, have at least 760 mm of clearance in front of it.
The province's Building Code Appeal Board applied this strictly in decision BCAB 1940: a device limiting a bedroom window to a 100 mm opening passed the fall-protection rules but failed egress, because the escape opening must be reachable with the window's normal operating procedure. The 2024 code keeps the same egress wording as the 2018 code that case used. If a lock needs a key, a tool or a trick, it stays off the escape window.
Keyed locks earn their place on windows nobody escapes through, like the kitchen slider, where breaking the glass and reaching in no longer opens the sash. On a bedroom's escape window a keyed lock fails the code's first test, and a key kept beside the window is still a key. Have several keyed alike, and keep the key where the household knows to look.
A vent stop lets a window open a few centimetres and no further: a breeze without an open invitation. They suit living rooms, kitchens and any window that isn't a bedroom's escape route; on the escape window, BCAB 1940 is the answer. If a bedroom has a second window that also meets the size rule, the stop can go on that one.
Basement wells get domes or grates to keep out rain, leaves and the neighbour's cat. Sentence 9.9.10.1.(5) requires a protective enclosure over the well in front of a required bedroom window to open from the inside without keys, tools or special knowledge, so a grate padlocked from outside fails. Grilles on the escape window need the same obvious inside release; bars that only unbolt from outside turn a basement bedroom into a trap.
Security film holds broken glass together, so a smash-and-reach takes longer and makes more noise. It doesn't make glass unbreakable, but it doesn't change how a window opens, so it's fine on an escape window. Contact sensors report when a sash opens. Coquitlam RCMP's 2025 advice included activating home alarms, and a sensor on the basement window facing the lane follows it.
It depends on your strata plan. Section 68 of the Strata Property Act puts a strata lot's boundary midway through a wall separating it from common property, unless the plan shows otherwise, and windows sit in that wall. Repair matters more: Standard Bylaw 8 has the strata maintain windows on the exterior of a building or that front on common property, even inside a strata lot, unless your strata filed different bylaws under section 120.
The Standard Bylaws require the strata's written approval before an owner alters a strata lot in a way that involves the building's exterior or its exterior doors, windows or skylights (Bylaw 5), or alters common property, including limited common property (Bylaw 6). Under Bylaw 5 the strata must not unreasonably withhold approval, and it can ask you to cover the costs.
A clamp-on track stop is hard to call an alteration. A pin drilled through the frame, a keyed handle, an exterior grille or a fixed well cover is what those bylaws are about, so email the strata manager a photo and get the yes in writing. Bylaw 5 doesn't apply on a bare land strata plan; your plan says which you're in.
Carefully. Section 31 of the Residential Tenancy Act bars a tenant from changing a lock or other means of access to the rental unit without the landlord's written agreement or a director's order. The Act doesn't say whether a window lock counts, so get written agreement for anything drilled, keyed or permanent. A broken latch is a repair request, in writing with a photo: section 32 requires the landlord to maintain the property to the health, safety and housing standards required by law.
Clamp-on stops, dowels and basic pin locks are hardware-store purchases. Past that, the cost depends on:
On the labour side, a mobile service call in Metro Vancouver typically runs $49 to $75, a range the lock change and rekey guide lists as applied to the work; hardware varies too much by window to range fairly. A residential locksmith earns the call when a latch needs more than a straight swap, when several windows need keyed locks, when a basement bedroom needs securing without breaking the egress rule, or after a break-in damages a frame.
| Lock | Window type | On a bedroom escape window | Drilling | Strata approval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Factory latch, repaired | Sliders, hung windows | Yes | Existing holes | May be a strata repair |
| Thumbscrew track stop | Sliders | No, an extra step | None | Removable |
| Pin lock | Sliders, hung windows | No | Through the frame | Bylaw 5 approval |
| Dowel or charley bar | Sliders | No | Dowel none; bar screws on | Ask about a bar |
| Anti-lift block | Sliders | Yes | Small screws | Ask if drilled |
| Casement locking handle | Casement, awning | Yes, if original | Existing prep | May be a strata repair |
| Keyed or custodial lock | Any | No | Usually | Bylaw 5 approval |
| Vent stop | Sliders, hung windows | No, per BCAB 1940 | Varies | Ask if drilled |
| Well cover or grille | Basement wells | Only with a key-free release | Fixed outside | Bylaw 5 approval |
| Film or sensor | Any glass | Yes | None | Ask the strata |
On a slider nobody escapes through, a working latch plus a pin lock or track stop, and an anti-lift block if the sash lifts. On a bedroom's escape window, a latch in good repair and an anti-lift block, with nothing to undo before it opens.
Not on the window the bedroom relies on for escape. Unless the suite is sprinklered, Article 9.9.10.1 of the BC Building Code requires at least one outside window or exterior door that opens from inside without keys, tools or special knowledge. An extra window beyond that one can.
For anything drilled, keyed or fixed outside, assume yes: Standard Bylaw 5 covers alterations involving exterior windows and Bylaw 6 covers common property, unless your strata filed its own bylaws. A removable track stop is the least likely to need approval.
Fix the latch first, then add key-free stops: an anti-lift block on a slider, a tightened keeper on a casement, a vent stop on any window that isn't the escape route. Keep the escape window opening with its normal handle, 760 mm clear in front of it in a well, and any well cover openable from inside without a key or tool.
Fast Locksmith Coquitlam fits and adjusts window locks, track stops and keyed-alike window hardware on townhouses and ground-floor suites, and will flag which bedroom window has to stay key-free before anything goes on. Call 604.259.6771 or book online with a photo of the latch, plus the strata's written OK if the work touches the building's exterior.
Further reading on locks, keys and strata rules around a Coquitlam home.