Imagine, on coming home, and you find your front door kicked-in and your home burglarized. Mostly, criminals enter your home through the front door. It is effortless and takes significantly less time for a burglar to break the door and steal your things.
Many people think that an alarm is enough to protect them from burglary. But that's not true. It is suggested to reinforce your door to give you additional security and safety.
Many of you may have a mind-set that reinforcing your door burns a hole in your pocket and consumes many hours. But that's not the case at all. You can make your door stronger by using only a small amount of money and in no time.
It is way too easy to kick-in the regular front doors. Therefore, you should not think much about investments regarding the security of your people and assets. It is effortless to open up an entryway by forced entry. Many people even don't know how easy that is.
If you have a lock in the center and sometimes even if you have a deadbolt on top, usually they are only one or two good kicks away from having your door blown in. You might have seen such cases in a lot of movies or on TV shows.
Typically, a door is attached to hinges, and it hangs on a frame. That frame can be a few inches thick and not very strong. So, there is not pretty much to prevent someone from kick-in in the door.
Securing Your Door from Being Kicked In
Use a larger strike plate and reinforce the hinges: Original doors come with a small strike plate that cannot withstand a larger force or more kicks and can be blown in easily. You should alter them with a larger one. A larger striker plate distributes the force and secures your door from being kicked in.
Assess the situation of the current door and its frame. If the hinges are loose, tighten them to ensure that the screws are not loose, hauling the door security. When you buy, hinges do consider the finishing, size, and corner style of them.
In most houses, interior doors use 3.5-inch hinges, while the exterior door uses 4-inch hinges to support the door's additional weight. Also, choose the hinges with the same corner style as of existing hinges.
Use durable deadbolts. The burglars can easily bypass the standard locks, and that's why you should use Grade 1 deadbolts.
Reinforce your door with a barricade: You can use a barricade to secure your front door. Most doors are equipped with a deadbolt and a handle set. They will lock your doors but not barricade criminals from kicking in your door.
Installing a Barricade gives you additional security and extra time to call the police or neighbors. You can use barricades by 'Night lock.' It is effortless to install them in no time.
- Position the barricade close to the door.
- Drill out the holes to the floor through the barricade.
- Use and drill-in the matching screws and anchors to fix the barricade to the floor.
- It uses the strength of the floor to withstand a higher force.
- Slide-in the lock into the mounting plate to use the barricade.
These barricades can be installed on any floor, such as - wooden, cemented, marble, or carpet floor.
Replace all the original screws: Another weak point related to your striker plate is its screws. The screws in the striker plate are tiny. They only attach the striker plate to the door frame and do not fix the door firmly.
So just take them out and put some much longer screws in your striker plate and sink them into the studs to make them much stronger and get much stronger doors. For this, you need at least two screws (3 inches long), a drill with a bit to screw-in the screws.
Take out the original screws and drill-in the longer screws. This makes your door stronger.
Reinforce Your Door Jamb
You can install Door Sentinel over your front door. The steel plate functions by making the door's weak points stronger, for example, the locking area and the hinges. Use more screws to install the Door Sentinel. As mentioned earlier, try to use a larger plate as it will distribute the force.
Place the Locks at The Place of Impact
Usually, the locks are placed either in the center or at the top of the door. However, the thieves or burglars kick-in the doors at the lower bottom area. That's why it is recommended to put the locks at the place of impact.
Conclusion
Security of family members and valuable assets is most important for all, including a commercial institution. You cannot get over the fear and threat to life, objectives, and goals if you don't have proper safety.
Doors play an essential role in delivering security to your home. Criminals and burglars make their way into the home by kicking-in the weak points of the door. Therefore, to make your doors more secure, you should make the door's weak points stronger.
You can use a variety of methods and can choose the ones mentioned above to serve your purpose. You can be more imaginative and can think of many more creative ideas to secure your doors.