Crime-Proof Your Locks and Doors

by Avi Ben David

You want to make your home very difficult to enter for a burglar. How?

You have seen the crime shows where the bad guy simply kicks the front door in. Here are a few tips that will make that all but impossible.

• Your entrance doors should all be of solid core or metal construction.
• Put deadbolt locks in your entrance doors. These should be of the highest quality. The "throw" (the part of the lock that goes into the door frame) should be long: not less than 1 inch.
• Get lock sets that are of the highest quality. Get the knob-in-lock variety that have a dead-latch mechanism.
• Get your strike plates installed with 3-inch screws that penetrate all the way into the wooden door frame
• All your entrance doors should have a wide-angle 160° peephole mounted no higher than 5 feet.

Burglars have an "easy way" mind set. So in burglar-proofing your home, look for all the "easy ways". What typically are the easiest ways to get in to your home? In most homes, here are "the easy ways":

1. The Garage Door. This is usually the easiest entrance and it often provides the burglar with the most cover.
   
2. The back door. Great cover, typically, and often very poorly locked.
   
3. Backyard windows.

How to handle?

1. Use Grade-1 or Grade-2 locks of the highest quality on all your exterior doors. These will resist the burglars attempts to twist, pry or pick your locks. Also install quality deadbolt locks. You want the type that has a beveled (slanted) casing.  These thwart the criminal's efforts to shear off the lock pins with channel-lock pliers. Make sure that your lock sets have 'dead latch' mechanisms. These prevent doors being opened with just a shim or credit card.
   

2. Burglars don't usually show a lot of finesse. If your door is locked, the most common way they will use to force entry through a door is to simply kick it open!
   
   The weakest point in your doorway? The lock strike plate. This is the shiny metal piece in your door frame that holds the latch or lock bolt of your lock. Your typical strike plate is secured just by the soft-wood doorjamb molding. All it takes is a firm kick to tear away most of these installations.
   
   Upgrade your installation to a heavy duty four-screw, high security strike plate. You can get these in most quality hardware stores. They are well worth the extra dollar or two that you will have to pay for them. You'll want to install this plate with nice, long, strong screws (3 inches). You should also use these longer screws to more completely secure your knob lock strike plate. The hinges can be given extra strength as well. Put at least one of them in every door hinge. You will see that your typical door hinge has a screw of less than an inch long.  This one step alone will deter or prevent most through-the-door forced entries. You and your family will sleep safer in the future.

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