33% of burglars enter a home or building right through the front door. Typically during daylight hours on warm clear days. 95% of the time the door is forced open, the other 5% occur because the key is found nearby or the door is open.
Let’s talk about Burglar Poof Doors.
At SwissShade we like to be exact about security, our products and our services. The term “Burglar Proof” isn’t specific enough for technical learning, we wrote “Burglar Proofing – What does it really mean?” to help you understand the subject.
All doors have 4 basic parts.
1. Door Slab – the panel which swings either inwards or outwards
2. Door Frame – Jambs on the side, header across the top, sill along the floor.
3. Hinges – connect the door panel to the frame
4. Handset – Handle – Lock – Burglar Proof Locks
Overview:
Thieves will always look for the weakest link in construction of your doors. If the door panel is too strong they’ll go for the hinges, if the hinges are too strong they’ll go for the lock, if the lock is too strong they’ll fo for the frame, if the frame is too strong…You get the picture.
The weak point in a Burglar Resistant door.
A door is only as secure as its weakest part. There’s no use in having a door slab with high impact resistant characteristics if the door frame is feeble and weak.
Types of Doors.
Burglar Proofing your doors is specific to what type of door you want to secure. Here’s a short list of typical door styles
1. Front Door
2. Man Door – typically to the garage
3. Side Door
4. Back Door
5. Sliding Patio Door
6. French Doors
7. Balcony Doors
8. Door with sidelights
9. Door with transom
10. lift and slide doors
Making your front entry door burglar proof is not the same as making your sliding patio door burglar proof.
There’s too many details to be specific about securing each door style in this article, but here’s a list of basics applying to all door styles.
Frame:
A frame does two things.
1. The outermost structural element of a window or door.
2. A means by which a window or door can be attached to an opening in a wall.
Frame materials and how they are attached to the wall of a building are critical for security. Most door break-ins are a “door-frame failure”. The force of a good hard kick on a door will transfer from the door panel to the lockset. The force on the lockset will transfer to the door frame, and in most cases, blow-out the weak material in the frame. It looks like this.
Slab / Panel
A panel is only as good as it’s connection to a frame which are the hinges and lock-set. Door slabs with a layer of metal are more resistant than wood. Door slabs with a lot of glass should have impact resistant glass installed making it a burglar proof sliding glass door. Burglar proof patio doors should also be resistant to the entire door panel being popped out all at once.
Burglar Proof Screens:
There are exceptionally strong screen materials available but they need to be considered as only a deterrent and not as a significant impact resistant security measure.
Hinges / Handset.
Door hardware integrates the slab with the frame so that the entire assembly acts as one resistant composite. Tamper-proof hinges, multi-point locks and other technologies may be used to increase the security of a door. There are a wide variety of burglar proof locks available, SwissShade + Security will assist in your selection.