When you’ve spent years stockpiling for an emergency, the last thing you want is for someone to break into your home and steal it all away.
In a recent article, we discussed how to secure a door from being kicked in, and now we’re going to expand on that concept, looking at different ways you can reinforce every aspect of a door, from hinges to handle.
#1 The Best Front Doors for Home Security
You can reinforce frames, handles, and locks, but strengthening the door itself isn’t so easy.
That’s why investing in a high-quality, durable front door is the first step towards successful home security.
Steel doors aren’t as attractive or versatile as wooden doors, but they are robust and durable. Steel doors won’t warp or expand and, with the correct mechanisms in place, are almost impossible to kick in.
This steel door is reinforced and made from a single, non-welded piece of metal, which improves its structural integrity and makes it more resilient to sledgehammer strikes and battering rams.
#2 Upgrade Your Hinges
When we think about home security, door hinges are the last things on our minds, but they should be the first.
Exterior doors open outward, which means the barrel of the hinges is exposed. An experienced burglar could remove the pin or cut off the barrel, thereby removing the hinges and the door itself.
There are three basic types of security hinges, all of which aim to correct this weakness in your door security.
Butt Hinges With Security Tabs
The security tabs on these hinges lock the two leaves of the hinge together so that, even if the pin is removed or barrel cut off, the two sides of the hinge remain securely connected. The best security hinges are brass or bronze, as these metals are stronger and more durable than stainless steel.
Continuous or Piano Hinges
A piano hinge runs the entire door length, so although it has a removable pin, removing it would be highly time-consuming. They’re often used on heavy-duty doors to improve strength and durability. As with the butt hinges, a brass hinge is more robust and durable than aluminum or stainless steel.
Butt Hinges with Non-Removable Pins
These look like any standard door hinge but offer a higher level of security. The only way to remove the pin from the barrel is by cutting the barrel off the hinge. Hinges like these are popular and affordable but don’t offer the same level of protection as those with inbuilt security tabs.
#3 Reinforce the Door Frame
A door frame is a crucial part of your home security. A strong door is ineffectual unless attached to a robust door frame. While it’s possible to reinforce a flimsy doorframe, you’d be better off investing in something robust and weather-resistant at the outset.
While wooden doorframes are the most common, metal doorframes are easier to maintain and provide better long-term protection. On the downside, they cost around three times more than the wooden models.
A cheaper way of improving your security is to reinforce your existing door frame.
Jamb repair and reinforcement kits are affordable, simple to install, and designed to strengthen weak spots to improve your home’s overall security.
This kit includes reinforced steel latch and deadbolt strikes, door-edge guards, and jamb plates.
#4 How Bolt Strike Plates Strengthen Frames and Locks
The bolt strike plate attaches to the door frame and reinforces the connection between the frame and the deadbolt or lockset. It functions as a critical anchor point that engages with the tongue of the deadbolt and keeps the door securely locked.
A bolt strike plate attached with 3″ screws will improve the overall integrity of the doorframe, creating a stronger hold, and making it harder for an intruder to kick your door in.
This brass bolt strike plate from Belwith is strong, durable, and comes with nine 4-inch screws for extra protection.
#5 Improve Security with a High-Tech Door Handle
The type and design of your door handle play a small yet critical role in your home security.
A doorknob with a key slot on the outside, and a button or thumb turn on the inside, isn’t secure enough to keep intruders at bay. As the locking mechanism is inside the doorknob, all a burglar needs to do to gain access is remove the knob.
Another problem with this type of door handle is that the latch is too short, making it all too easy for an experienced burglar to shim open with a credit card.
Most homes have entry sets rather than separate handles and locks, so we’ll discuss those in more detail in our section on door locks. Door handles are easier to open but require more maintenance than doorknobs.
As technology evolves, the choice of door handles, knobs, and levers has expanded. You can now get biometric door levers, like this Geek Smart Fingerprint Door Lock, that scan your fingerprints before allowing you entry.
Not only does this make your home more secure, but it also means you can gain entry quickly in case of an emergency. Combine this with a heavy-duty Mortise lock, and your home will be almost as impenetrable as Fort Knox.
#6 The Best Locks to Protect your Home
Traditionally, a five-lever Mortise deadlock would be the best and most secure option for your front door.
Unlike the tubular latches found on interior doors, Mortise deadlocks are heavy-duty and tamper-proof. You can improve your home security even further by combing a digital lock with a durable five-lever Mortise deadlock.
The igloohome Mortise 2 might cost more than your average front door, but it’s almost guaranteed to keep intruders out of your home and away from your valuable stockpile.
You can choose to enter a PIN code or unlock your door with your smartphone via Bluetooth. You can even grant visitors access while you’re away, creating temporary PIN codes and Bluetooth keys that expire after a specific period.
Similar but more affordable products include the ULTRALOQ Smart Lock.
This impressive piece of home security is 35 times stronger than the average residential lock and will alert you every time it’s unlocked.
Simple to install, the smart lock uses 128-bit AES encryption to protect your data and an anti-peep keypad to protect your passcode.
#7 Add Another Layer of Protection with A Video Doorbell
With a video doorbell or doorbell camera, you can see everything happening on your doorstep, whether you’re at home or on the other side of the world.
Products like the Ring Video Doorbell enable you to screen your visitors, capture valuable video footage of any attempted break-ins, and quickly alert emergency services.
It can also add value to your home and earn you a discount on your home insurance.
Conclusion
Reinforcing your front door is one of the best ways to enhance your home security and protect your family and valuables.
You can reinforce your front door effectively on any budget. It only costs a few dollars to replace the existing hinges with security hinges. Still, even this small improvement will make it a lot harder for anyone to gain unauthorized entry.
If you’ve got the budget to complete all seven of our recommended methods of reinforcing your front door, you can be pretty sure that no one will be entering your property without permission or your knowledge.
Read more about the best ways to protect and defend your home and our guide to window security guards.
