Exterior Door Security Measures Help Keep The Burglar Out.
Never Neglect Your Exterior Door Security.
How many entrances into your home are there?
If your home is an
apartment it likely just has the one door in from a hallway.
A house on
the other hand may have a back door and a door in from an attached
garage, in addition to the front door.
It is of little use ensuring that you have sufficient exterior door
security measures for your front door and neglecting security for your
other external doors.
Likewise there is little point in
ensuring that you have sturdy exterior doors and fitting weak locks.
And even
a good door fitted with the best of locks will provide you with
insufficient security if fitted into a poor frame.
All Doors Into your Home Should Be Secure.
All the exterior doors to your home should be of solid core
construction.
You can test your existing doors out by pushing or tapping
a straight pin into the door.
If the pin goes in with little resistance
it is likely a hollow door that could easily be busted in by a burglar,
these doors should be replaced with solid doors.
Are all exterior doors in good condition? Any signs of rot, any panels with cracks or badly warped?
Door security measures are no use at all if you do not use them, lock doors each time that you leave your home. |
Your door-frames are an important part of your exterior door security
too.
Are they all in good order, well maintained, free from rot and
strong and tight enough to resist being spread apart with a spreader
bar?
Are all exterior doors protected by High Quality Deadbolt Locks?
A
mail slot in an external door can present a home security risk.
Could a
thief reach through the mail slot and operate the lock? Burglars have
been known to insert a contraption made of wire and cord into the mail
slot and use it to open the catch.
If you must have a mail slot in
the door fix a secure box or cage behind the slot. Not only will this
prevent a thief reaching in and opening your door, it will also stop him
looking through the slot to check out if your home is occupied.
Even high quality solid doors fitted with good locks can be defeated by kicking or barging, consider inexpensive Door Reinforcement as part of your exterior door security measures.
Do any of your External Doors Have Glass Panes? Have you taken measures to prevent the door locks being reached and opened by someone breaking the glass panels? |
When you moved into your home did you change all the exterior locks or have the cylinders changed? Do you know Never to Hide a Spare Key anywhere outside your home?
Have
any of your keys ever gone missing? If they have then don’t take
chances, change the locks or have them re-keyed. You never know who will
end up with a lost or stolen key. Do not lend keys to service staff
etc. Copies can be made so easily.
Is there a pet door
in any of your exterior doors? When it comes to exterior door security
these pet doors present a weakness. As with mail slots and glass panes a
thief could reach the lock by reaching through the pet door.
A child may be able to crawl in through a pet entrance for a larger
pet, burglars have been known to use small “artful dodgers” as
accomplices and some burglars are in fact children themselves.
An
electronic pet door may give you a bit more security. Your pet wears a
collar with an embedded transmitter, the pet door only operates on
receipt of a signal from the collar.
These pet doors are designed to
keep other animals out, not burglars, but if fitted correctly may offer the intruder some resistance.
Ask yourself if you really need the pet door? Could your pet be retrained to exist without it?
Does your home have a Glass Sliding Door?
These doors throw a lot of light into a room and often give an
uninterrupted vista of the garden. The drawbacks being that they offer
weak exterior door security and are typically installed at the rear of a
property and are not therefore overlooked by passers by or neighbors.
Make
sure that your sliding doors cannot be lifted out of the frame and that
they can be locked top and bottom.
Inserting a length of broom handle
cut to size in the bottom track prevents it being slid open. Better
still, install a purpose made Charlie Bar that folds out of the way when not in use.
You may be able to improve the security of your glass sliding doors by protecting them with Security Window Film.
A Potential Way In For The Burglar.
Do you really need all the exterior doors that your home has?
Think
about this, the more entrances your home has – the more potential ways
there are for the burglar to enter your home.
Of course, if a door
provides an essential fire escape then you should keep it. But some
doors are rarely used and remodeling your home to eliminate them can
often give you extra useful space and mean one less way in for the
intruder.
If your home has an attached garage with a door leading from the
garage into the house make sure that door is of exterior quality.
Once thieves have Broken into the Garage
they can work on the connecting door unseen. For this reason you need
to protect this door with as much security as the rest of your exterior
doors.
Finally, remember that exterior door security measures are
of no use if you do not use them. Lock your doors each and every time
that you leave your home empty, even if you are just slipping out for a few moments – lock up!
Home Door Security
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Exterior Door Security.
Keyless Locks
Have you ever lost your keys? Keys do tend to get lost and that
can mean a big headache. You may need to call out a locksmith, not only
to get you into your home but also to replace your lock, you do not want
to keep the same lock with a lost key out there somewhere. Keyless locks have no keys for you to lose.