Magnetic Door Locks in Newmarket: Holding Force, Fail-Safe and Getting Out
A magnet with no moving parts, holding a door with several hundred kilograms of force, that must let go instantly when the power drops or the fire alarm sounds. Getting the release right matters more than the holding force.
Quick answer
A magnetic door lock uses an electromagnet on the frame and a steel armature on the door, typically rated 600 lb or 1200 lb of holding force. Mag locks are fail-safe: they release whenever power is removed, including on fire alarm and power failure. Every mag lock needs a compliant way out. Call 866-820-1331.
Magnetic door locks turn up all over Newmarket without most people noticing them: the office suites off Yonge Street, medical and dental practices near Southlake Regional Health Centre, condo lobbies and stairwell doors around Yonge and Davis, gyms, daycares, self-storage, and the pedestrian gates on newer townhouse developments. They are quiet, they have nothing to wear out, and they hold a door far harder than a latch does.
They also concentrate all their risk in one place. A mag lock has no mechanical override, so the entire safety of the door depends on the release side of the system being designed correctly. Get that right and a mag lock is the most reliable electric lock you can fit. Get it wrong and you have built a door that people cannot get out of, which is a very different kind of problem from a door that fails to lock.
We supply, install, service and repair mag locks across Newmarket and the surrounding towns. This page covers what the ratings actually mean, how release is meant to work, what the power supply needs to do, and where mag locks are and are not the right choice.
Holding force ratings, and what they mean in practice
Mag locks are sold by holding force, quoted in pounds. The common sizes are 300, 600, 1200 and 1500 lb, with 600 and 1200 covering most of what gets installed in a building like a Newmarket office or clinic.
The number is a laboratory figure. It is the straight pull required to separate a perfectly aligned magnet and armature, both clean, both flat, with the full rated current flowing. Real doors do not offer those conditions. A magnet with any gap between the faces loses force quickly, and a shear or prying attack applied at the edge of the door defeats the assembly at far less than the rated pull, because the attacker is levering rather than pulling square.
What that means practically: rating matters less than mounting. A 1200 lb lock screwed into a hollow aluminium frame with no reinforcement is weaker than a 600 lb lock through-bolted into solid backing. Most failures we are called to are mounting failures, not magnet failures.
| Rating | Where it fits | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 300 lb | Interior cabinets, light partition doors, low-risk internal doors | Rarely enough for a perimeter door |
| 600 lb | Typical interior office, suite and stairwell doors | The workhorse size for most Newmarket commercial fit-outs |
| 1200 lb | Perimeter entrances, exterior doors, main lobbies | Standard for anything facing the outside |
| 1500 lb and above | High-abuse or high-value doors | Needs serious frame reinforcement to be worth the rating |
| Shear locks | Concealed installations, sliding and swing doors where surface mounting is not wanted | More alignment-sensitive; misalignment causes most of their faults |
| Double mag locks | Pairs of doors on one frame | Two magnets, one controller, one release path |
A practical tip on troubleshooting: a mag lock that has started letting go under a firm pull is almost never a failed magnet. It is a gap. Check the armature bolt for looseness, check for a shim that has migrated, check that both faces are clean, and check whether the door has dropped on its hinges. Restore full face-to-face contact and the holding force comes back.
Ratings are manufacturer figures under ideal conditions. Actual performance depends on alignment, gap, frame construction and mounting hardware. Sizing for a specific door should be done on site.
Fail-safe: a mag lock must release when the power stops
This is the defining behaviour of a magnetic lock, and it is not optional.
A magnetic lock holds only while current flows through it. Cut the power and the magnet lets go. That behaviour is called fail-safe, and every mag lock is fail-safe by nature. There is no such thing as a fail-secure mag lock.
Two situations make that behaviour essential rather than incidental. The first is a fire alarm. A magnetic lock has to release on alarm so that people can leave and so that responders can get in, and that release has to be wired so it happens whether or not any other part of the system is working. The second is a power failure. In a building outage every mag lock in the place drops open, which is exactly what should happen for life safety, and which is also the single biggest security consideration in choosing a mag lock at all.
The wiring detail that matters: fire alarm release should be a hardwired interruption of the power to the lock, not a software instruction to a controller. If the release depends on a controller booting, a network being up or a database responding, it is not a release, it is a request.
- Fire alarm signal drops power to the lock directly, through a relay in the supply path.
- Any emergency release button on the door cuts power in hardware, in line with the lock.
- Loss of building power releases every mag lock, by design.
- Battery backup on the power supply keeps a lock energised through a short outage, but it must still be released by the fire alarm.
- Access control failure must not leave a door held. Consider what happens when the controller dies, not only when it works.
Because power loss means open, mag locks are a poor choice on a door whose whole purpose is to stay locked when everything else fails. A stockroom, a pharmacy cabinet, an equipment cage or a door protecting cash is usually better served by a mechanical lock, or by a fail-secure electric strike backed by a proper key override. Where a door genuinely needs both electric control and lock-on-failure behaviour, that is a conversation to have with our access control side rather than defaulting to a magnet.
Getting out: request-to-exit and emergency release
Everything above is about the door being held. This section is about the far more important question of how a person gets through it from the inside.
Request-to-exit, usually shortened to REX, is the device that tells the system somebody wants to leave. It comes in several forms and they are not equivalent. A motion sensor mounted above the door on the inside detects approach and releases the lock. A push bar or touch bar releases as the person pushes. A switch built into a panic device or a lever handle releases the moment the hardware is operated. A push-to-exit button beside the door releases when pressed.
Then, separately, there is the emergency release. That is the red button, usually mounted at the door, wired directly in the power line to the magnet so that pressing it removes power regardless of what the controller thinks. Many are latching, so the door stays released until someone resets it deliberately.
Motion REX sensor
Mounted inside above the door. Releases on approach so a person never has to look for a control. Needs correct coverage and sensitivity, and needs to not trigger from the far side of the room.
Push bar or touch sense bar
Releases as the door is pushed. Intuitive, no instructions required, and it fails in the direction people expect.
Exit device switch
A monitored switch inside a panic bar releases the lock the moment the bar moves. This is the usual pairing on a door that also has exit hardware.
Emergency release button
Hardwired in the power path, independent of the controller. Press it and the magnet lets go, full stop. Usually latching and clearly identified.
A mag lock with only a keypad or a card reader on the inside is not a way out. If the way out of a door depends on a person having a credential, having power, or knowing a code, that door has a problem. Whether a specific door in your building is an egress door, what release devices it requires, how they must be labelled and how they must be wired is determined by the fire inspector or the authority having jurisdiction for your building. Ask them before the design is fixed, not after the wiring is in the ceiling. We install to what they require, and we will happily walk a door with you and your inspector.
Power supplies and battery backup
A mag lock is only as reliable as what feeds it. Most magnets run on 12 or 24 volts DC, and the current draw is continuous, because holding the door is an active state rather than a resting one. A single 1200 lb magnet typically pulls in the region of half an amp at 12 volts, less at 24. Multiply that across every door in a suite and the supply sizing stops being trivial.
Use a regulated, filtered DC supply intended for access control, not a generic adapter. Unfiltered supplies cause buzzing magnets, erratic release and premature failure of the reader electronics sharing the same rail. Size the supply with headroom, allow for voltage drop over long cable runs, and run 24 volts rather than 12 where the run is long.
Battery backup keeps doors held through a brief outage, which prevents the whole floor unlocking every time a storm flickers the lights. It also has to be wired so that a fire alarm still drops the lock while the battery is carrying the load. A backup that keeps a door magnetised during an alarm is worse than no backup.
- Regulated, filtered, access-control-grade DC supply, sized with spare capacity.
- 24 volts preferred on long runs to limit voltage drop.
- Sealed lead-acid backup batteries, replaced roughly every three to five years before they fail quietly.
- Fire alarm relay wired to interrupt output regardless of battery state.
- Surge protection on the supply, particularly on doors in exposed or standalone buildings.
- Separate the lock power from reader and controller power where possible, so a lock inrush does not brown out the electronics.
If your building sits on the edge of town where power dips are common, factor that in. A brief flicker with no backup means every mag-locked door in the building opens and then re-locks, which shows up in the access log and occasionally leaves a door standing open. Backup batteries solve that for a few hundred dollars.
Gates and glass doors
Two applications come up constantly in Newmarket and both have their own quirks.
Pedestrian gates. Townhouse and condo developments, pool enclosures, yard gates and side-yard access gates are all common mag lock locations. Outdoors, everything is harder: you need a weatherproof or gasketted magnet with a suitable enclosure, stainless or coated fixings, cabling in conduit rather than clipped along a rail, and a mounting bracket that copes with a gate that flexes and swings in wind. Gates also move seasonally as the posts heave through the freeze-thaw cycle, so the alignment that was perfect in September is often out by April. A gate mag lock wants checking twice a year.
Glass doors. Frameless and narrow-stile glass entrances are the other big category, in offices, clinics and retail. Glass cannot be drilled after the fact, so the armature mounts through a U-bracket or a Z-and-L bracket assembly that clamps around the door, or onto the top rail if there is one. Alignment on glass is unforgiving because there is no frame to hide adjustment in, and because a glass door on a floor pivot swings differently from one on hinges. Done properly it is invisible and it works for years. Done badly it rattles, the bracket loosens, and the magnet loses contact.
On both gates and glass, the release question is the one to settle first. A gate needs a way out that works with cold hands and no power. A glass entrance needs a REX and an emergency release that people can find without thinking about it. Where a glass door also carries exit hardware, the mag lock and the panic bar have to be wired to work together so that pushing the bar always releases the magnet.
Magnetic lock prices in Newmarket
| Item | What is included | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| 600 lb mag lock, single interior door | Magnet, armature, brackets, mounted and aligned | $420 – $780 |
| 1200 lb mag lock, perimeter door | Heavier magnet, reinforced mounting, aligned and tested | $580 – $1,050 |
| Power supply with battery backup | Regulated supply, enclosure, sealed battery, wired | $260 – $560 |
| Request-to-exit motion sensor | Supplied, mounted, coverage set and tested | $180 – $360 |
| Emergency release button, hardwired | Button, back box, wired in the lock power path | $140 – $300 |
| Fire alarm interface relay | Relay wired to drop lock power on alarm | $180 – $420 |
| Glass door bracket assembly | U-bracket or Z-and-L set for frameless or narrow-stile glass | $160 – $420 |
| Exterior gate installation | Weatherproof magnet, conduit, bracket, alignment | $650 – $1,400 |
| Service call, alignment and testing | Existing mag lock checked, realigned, release verified | $110 – $220 |
If you are fitting more than one or two doors, mag locks usually make more sense as part of a designed access control system than as standalone units, because the readers, the controller, the supply and the release devices all get sized together instead of being bolted on one door at a time.
These are typical 2026 Newmarket ranges, not quotes. Overnight, weekend and statutory holiday call-outs carry a premium, wiring runs and cabling routes affect cost significantly, and a firm price is confirmed on the phone before a technician is dispatched. Fire alarm interfacing may involve your alarm contractor as well.
Mag lock work around Newmarket
Most of our mag lock work sits in the commercial corridors along Yonge Street, Davis Drive, Mulock Drive and Green Lane, plus the professional and medical suites near Southlake and the newer office space toward Bayview Parkway and Leslie Street. Residential mag lock work is mostly condo and townhouse common doors near Yonge and Davis, plus pedestrian gates on the newer developments in Woodland Hill and out toward Holland Landing and Sharon. If you have inherited a mag lock installed by somebody else and are not sure it releases properly, that is worth a service call on its own.
Why Newmarket calls us first
Magnetic lock installation across York Region
We install and service mag locks from the Newmarket base out to Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Holland Landing, Sharon, Queensville, Keswick, Mount Albert, Bradford, Georgina, King City, Richmond Hill, Stouffville and Schomberg. Commercial installations are quoted after a site visit, because cable routes and frame construction change the price more than the hardware does.
Frequently asked questions
What does 600 lb or 1200 lb holding force actually mean?
It is the straight pull needed to separate a perfectly aligned, clean magnet and armature at full current in a lab. Real doors never match those conditions, and an attack applied as a pry at the door edge defeats a magnet at far less force than the rating. Use 600 lb for interior doors and 1200 lb for perimeter doors, and spend your attention on mounting rather than on the number.
Does a magnetic lock stay locked if the power goes out?
No, and it is not supposed to. Every mag lock is fail-safe: it holds only while current flows, so any loss of power releases the door. That is a life safety requirement, not a defect. If you need a door that stays locked through an outage, a mag lock is the wrong choice and a mechanical lock or a fail-secure electric strike is the right one.
Does the mag lock have to release when the fire alarm sounds?
Yes. Release on fire alarm is fundamental to how these systems are meant to work, and the release should be wired as a hardware interruption of the power feeding the magnet rather than a software command to a controller. What is required for a specific door in your building is determined by the fire inspector or the authority having jurisdiction. Confirm the requirements with them and we will install to meet them.
What is a request-to-exit device?
It is whatever tells the system that somebody wants to leave: a motion sensor above the door on the inside, a push bar, a touch sense bar, a switch inside a panic device, or a push-to-exit button. It releases the magnet on the way out. It is separate from the emergency release button, which cuts power directly and independently of the controller. Most doors need both.
Can I put a mag lock on a glass door?
Yes, using a U-bracket or a Z-and-L bracket assembly that clamps to the door rather than drilling the glass. Frameless and narrow-stile doors are both common installations. Alignment is more critical than on a framed door because there is no frame to absorb adjustment, and a glass door on a floor pivot swings differently from one on hinges, so it is worth having the alignment set on site.
Can a mag lock go on an outdoor gate?
Yes, with a weatherproof or gasketted magnet, a proper enclosure, coated or stainless fixings and cabling run in conduit. The main ongoing issue is alignment: gate posts move with the freeze-thaw cycle here, so a gate that held perfectly in autumn is often out of contact by spring. Plan on a check twice a year and it will be reliable.
How much power does a mag lock use?
Continuously, because holding is an active state. A 1200 lb magnet typically draws around half an amp at 12 volts and roughly half that at 24. Size the supply with headroom for every door on the circuit, use a regulated access-control supply rather than a generic adapter, and prefer 24 volts on long cable runs to limit voltage drop.
Do I need battery backup?
It is worth it in most buildings. Without backup, every brief power flicker unlocks every mag-locked door in the building and then relocks it, which occasionally leaves a door standing open. A sealed battery on the supply rides through short outages. It must still be wired so the fire alarm drops the lock while the battery is carrying the load.
Related locksmith services in Newmarket
Planning or fixing a magnetic lock in Newmarket?
Call 866-820-1331 and we will walk the door with you: holding force, mounting, release devices, power and backup. If you already have a mag lock and are not certain it releases the way it should, that is worth checking today.
