Installing Door Locks For Increased Security!One of the problems many people seem to have after making their exterior doors more secure is having a family member or two that has a complacent attitude when it comes to home security. If anyone in your own home fits this description you may need to remind them that the highest quality & highest priced entry locks that are sold are absolutely useless when they are not used. The FBI reports that 12% of home burglaries in the United States are due to unlocked doors, open windows & burglars finding hidden door keys. Making your doors more secure is a big part of your first line of defense. Making your windows & doors more secure would be enough to make most burglars leave to seek out an easier target. Making sure all your exterior doors have appropriate locks is extremely important. In doing this you need to realize that installing door locks that are of good quality may not be the only measure you need to take in securing your exterior doors.
Before you start installing door locks in your home, you need to ensure that all your doors as well as the frames they are in, are all structurally sound. It takes much more than just a good secure lock to make your doors secure. It is a combination of the door, the door frame, the lock, hardware & hinges all working together. You need to ensure that all your exterior door locks are good quality deadbolt locks & that they all function properly. You should replace any sub-standard locks or any locks that fail to function the way they are designed to. If any of the locks feel stiff to use they may only need to be lubricated. Moisture & dust particles often get inside the lock through the keyhole, making the key hard to turn. You will need to spray a lubricant into the key hole & rotate the thumb turn so the deadbolt extends out from the door & lubricate the deadbolt as well, moving it in & out of the lock a few times. Lubricant in most cases will make the key much easier to turn. If you find that it did not help & the stiffness is still there, this would be a sign that the pins in the key cylinder are worn & it should be replaced. If you have a thumb turn on the interior side you should only have to replace the key cylinder itself.
Removing poor quality locks & installing door locks that will provide a much higher degree of security is the first step you need to take in making your home more secure. The locks that provide a higher level of security are deadbolt locks that have the bolt extending out from the edge or side of the door at least 1 inch or 2.54 centimetres. There are many different models of deadbolt locks that meet this requirement, but not all of them are good quality locks. When it comes to installing door locks that will provide you & your family with a higher degree of security, you need to purchase locks that have been tested & given a high rating for security & durability. A widely used grade system that measures the security & durability of deadbolt locks is the rigorous testing that is defined by ANSI – American National Standards Institute. The ANSI grade system is not just performed on deadbolt locks that are manufactured in the United States. Many companies that are well known for producing good quality locks with manufacturing facilities around the world have their deadbolt locks tested with the ANSI grade system. The highest graded deadbolt locks would be marked ANSI Grade 1. Any ANSI Grade 2 lock with a 1 inch or 2.54 centimetre throw is also a good quality deadbolt lock for any exterior doors in your home. Having a system that tests these deadbolt locks is the only way we can identify the secure quality & durability of any deadbolt lock that we purchase. Over 90% of all deadbolt locks that are sold & are installed on people’s homes are vulnerable to a lock picking technique called lock bumping. Lock bumping has been around for a long time & it was used by locksmiths & a small percentage of criminals that had obtained a special type key called a bump key. The reason why it has now become such a major threat to people everywhere is these bump keys are being sold on the internet to anyone who wants one for as low as $2.00 with instructions on how to use them. For further information on this lock picking technique please visit my lock bumping & my bump proof locks web pages. If you were to perform an internet search for deadbolt locks that are bump proof you would see that the large majority of them retail for about $80 to $150 & up. It could get expensive at these prices especially if you have 3 or 4 exterior doors, which isn’t hard for anyone with an attached garage. You may want to check out my weiser & kwikset door locks webpage as you will find complete information on high quality ANSI Grade 1 bump proof locks that retail for around $30. If you haven’t already seen some of the news updates that have been warning people of how big of a security threat lock bumping has become, you may want to replay the news update below from Action News 5. If you want to see additional news reports on this growing security problem please visit my bump proof locks & my lock bumping web pages for news updates by KBSW Action News 8 & from CBS5 Eyewitness News. Installing Door Locks – Single Cylinder Deadbolt A single cylinder deadbolt operates by using a key on the exterior side of the door & turning a thumb turn on the interior side. Both the key & the thumb turn allow you to lock & unlock the door. The best feature about installing door locks of this type, is that it will allow anyone to escape the home easily & quickly by a quick turn of the thumb turn in case of an emergency. The biggest drawback about this type of deadbolt is when glass can be broken close enough to the door to allow an intruder to reach in & rotate the thumb turn to unlock the door. Any glass that is close enough for an intruder to break & than reach in & unlock the door should have a security film laminate applied to it. This is certainly a much safer way to secure the door than it would be to use a double cylinder deadbolt or a captured key deadbolt lock.
A double cylinder deadbolt has a key cylinder on both sides & can only be locked & unlocked by using a key. There are many people installing door locks of this type, because they have glass close enough to the door for an intruder to break & reach in. Needing a key to unlock the door from the inside will certainly stop any intruder from reaching in & unlocking the door. The biggest drawback about this lock is if the key was ever out of reach or it was misplaced it would stop anyone trying to get out through that door in case of an emergency. Installing locks that require a key to unlock them is something I would never install in my home. It is better to spend an extra few dollars on having a security safety film laminate applied to the window, than risking the lives of you & your family with a double cylinder deadbolt lock. A captured key deadbolt is very similar to a single cylinder deadbolt because it has a key cylinder on the exterior side of the door & a thumb turn on the interior side. Where this lock differs from the single cylinder deadbolt is the thumb turn that locks & unlocks the door on the inside can be removed from the lock just leaving only a key hole. When the thumb turn is removed, this lock becomes exactly like a double cylinder deadbolt & just as dangerous if the thumb turn could not be readily found in case of an emergency. You obviously have to decide for yourself, but I truly believe that both the double cylinder deadbolt & captured key deadbolt locks are extremely too dangerous to be used in protecting doors in anyone’s home.
A security strike plate (catch plate) needs to be used on all your exterior doors in order to reinforce where the deadbolt is inserted into the door's frame. The strike plates that usually come with most deadbolt locks that are sold are more cosmetic than anything else. You need to replace this cosmetic strike plate with a heavier gauge security strike plate & secure it to the frame using 3 inch or 7.62 centimeter screws.
Having the screws penetrate through the door casing & into the wall stud, helps secure the door casing & will greatly improve the security on your exterior doors. You should replace any hinge screws that go into the door & frame with 3 inch or 7.62 cm screws as well. Reinforcing the screws in the strike plate & hinges on each exterior door is a very inexpensive security measure to take & it will likely make the doors secure enough to stop an intruder from gaining entry. In making your exterior doors more secure you may want to consider installing an extra lock, in addition to the single cylinder deadbolt lock discussed above. Installing a backup lock on your exterior doors will provide you with increased security, & peace of mind. If you are considering adding a backup lock to any or all of your exterior doors, you may want to consider installing one of the three locks that are listed below.
A single cylinder vertical deadbolt lock can serve you well as a backup lock, & will help make your exterior doors more secure. This lock is available as a single cylinder deadbolt & a double cylinder deadbolt. You need to choose the single cylinder deadbolt so you & your family can get out of your home quickly in case of an emergency. As mentioned above the double cylinder deadbolt has a key cylinder on both sides of the door & it could turn into a life & death situation if a fire was to occur & you & your family were trapped due to a misplaced key. This deadbolt lock does not require a key to lock or unlock it as these functions can only be done with a thumb turn on the interior side of the door. This deadbolt does not have a key cylinder & this lock cannot be seen from the exterior side of the door. It is just like a single cylinder deadbolt lock without the key cylinder & it is another good choice for a backup lock, for increasing the security of your exterior doors. This lock will provide you with added door security when you are home as it can only be locked from the inside. This lock has a key cylinder on the exterior side of the door & a thumb turn on the interior side. This is another lock that could serve you well as a backup lock, for increasing the security of your exterior doors. A couple of years ago I purchased a couple of new solid core hardwood doors for my home & just before leaving the store I noticed these lock-set installation kits. These kits had everything you would need in it for installing door locks on brand new doors. I was a bit skeptical when I first picked it up to look at it as the jig part itself was made out of plastic & I remember thinking to myself at the time this think is certainly not being sold for commercial use. I believe the price at the time for this kit was less than $15. I figured if I could get the holes bored out for the two doors I just purchased using this installation kit it would be well worth the money. This installation kit had actually turned out to be much better than I could have hoped for. I never had it so easy installing these two lock-sets on the new doors as this kit had honestly turned the job into child’s play. My Brother-in-law had used it last year for 3 or 4 interior doors as he replaced all the bedroom doors in his home & this kit certainly has some life left in it yet. The short video below shows the installation kit in action as the guy in the video installs a lock-set on a brand new door. Everything he is using a part from the drill is included in the kit. The kit I purchased was made by Irwin & it is been retailed now for $12.40 on amazon. You will also discover 2 similar kits for installing door locks that are made by Black & Decker & Dewalt being sold on Amazon also. If you have a current project or one coming up where you will be installing door locks on a brand new door(s) you should take a couple of minutes & watch the video below.
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