How Secure are Your Doors? A Quick Self-Test

Exterior doors are one of the most common entry methods for burglars.  It’s important that these doors are hard enough to break-in to cause would-be thieves to consider moving on to easier targets.

Exterior doors should be solid hardwood or metal.  Never use a hollow door, such as those used for interiors, as an exterior entry. Door locks should be high quality deadbolt locks with bolts that are at least 1-inch long.  Strike plates are the metal plate attached to the doorframe that receives the bolt.  These are often a weak point.  Unfasten one of the screws in your strike plate and check the length.  The standard 3/4” screws are woefully insufficient as they only fasten into the doorframe and not the wall studs.  Replace these with 3-4” screws.  The best lock in the world won’t help you if the strike plate breaks away from the doorframe.

The door should fit tightly in the doorframe and there should be very little space for insertion of a pry bar or other tool.  Check for wood rot or decay in the door and surrounding frame.

Consider, too, the proximity of windows.  If there are windows in the door, or within about 30 inches of the door, the deadbolt lock will not provide much security.  A thief can simple break one of the windows, reach in and unlock the deadbolt.  You may have to replace your door with a windowless model, or replace door or window glass with shatter and break resistant Plexiglas.

Although exterior door hinges are commonly located inside the home, in some areas (such as hurricane prone regions), exterior door hinges are common.  Exterior hinges make it possible for thieves to remove the hinge pins and gain entry by lifting the door off the hinges.  If you have such hinges, contact a locksmith or a hardware store as there are a number of simple solutions that require only a few hand tools.

Finally, exterior doors should have a peep-hole so that you can see anyone outside without opening the door.  These are inexpensive, and should have a wide field of view so you can see people standing to the side of the door.  Mount these approximately 5’ high, and have a step-stool handy if anyone in your household can’t easily peek through the peephole at that height.

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A solid strategy for home security uses three tactics:

The first tactic is what most people think of when talking about home security, simply make it harder for a thief to break in. Thieves don’t want to work any harder than they have to for a payoff, and they will often look for the easiest targets in a given neighborhood. You make it harder to break into your home by having strong exterior doors (metal or solid hardwood, not hollow), good deadbolt locks on every door. In addition, every window in the house should have a keyed lock. These steps alone go a long way towards preventing burglary.

The second tactic is to make it riskier to break in. Just as thieves will avoid a target that’s too much work, they’ll avoid a target that they think might land them (back) in jail. Alarm systems are one of the best methods to keep the average thief away. The problem with alarms is that most people forget or simply stop setting them after awhile. One of the best things you can do for the security of your home is to 1) have a monitored alarm system and 2) set it every time you leave the house and at night.

Finally, the third way to improve your odds against crime is to make it less rewarding for thieves to break in. The trick here is that you don’t need to throw out everything of value in your home – you only have to make thieves think it’s not a very rewarding place to break in. If you have an expensive car, keep it hidden in the garage. Laptops, flat-screen tv’s and other highly target items for theft shouldn’t be left around where they can be seen through a window when you’re not home. If you have valuables in your home, be careful about who sees them. Most contract help, service workers and such probably aren’t tied in with criminal elements, but it only takes one to wipe you out.

Again, the three most important tactics you can take to secure your home are to make it harder, riskier and less rewarding to break in.

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