Use Door Reinforcement to beef up your Home Security

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Though there’s no such thing as a 100 percent burglar-proof home, there’s also no such thing as a burglar who has the skills of Mission Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, Spiderman or the Hulk, either. With enough security measures, you can almost make your home burglar-proof.

When homeowners think of security, often only a limited range of devices comes into mind. For example, how many people even know that shatter proof glass exists? How many people would think to install fake (but real looking) surveillance cameras at all entry points where anyone can easily see them?

Have you ever even wondered just how much you can do with your front door to deter a break-in? First off, doors can be kicked in (three-quarter inch pine), even if they have a good lock (one-half inch screws and a stock strike plate). So when you see Detective Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: SVU” kicking down doors, that’s not unrealistic.

Door Reinforcement Devices

  • Door knob/deadbolt wrap. Installed on the door, these strengthen the area around the locks.
  • Door brace. These can be vertical or floor mounted, making it harder to kick down a door.
  • Door bar jammer. This bar device snuggly fits under a doorknob and is angled 45 degrees to the floor.
  • Strike plate. The thicker version is about three or four inches long.
  • Door frame reinforcement. Typically made of steel, this device can be up to four feet long and is installed on the door jamb center, over the existing strike plates. Braces come in different styles.

Kicking down a door—a common scene in cops-and-robbers TV shows and movies, is actually the No. 1 way criminals get into locked houses. They know where to kick; a door has a weak area and the frame can easily be kicked down.

A standard door security consists of two to four little screws that go through one or two small strike plates, that are attached to a thin door frame that consists of 1/2” to 3/4” pine with a ½” thick molding. A 6 year old can karate chop ½” pine. No wonder it’s so easy to blow apart the frame with a foot.

That’s where The Door Devil Anti Kick Door Jamb Security Kit comes in. It’s a one-sixteenth inch heavy steel, four feet long bar, installed on the door jamb center—over the existing strike plates. It makes all that thin wood obsolete because it screws directly into the doors frame.

The Kit includes:

  • 48 inch steel door jamb reinforcement to replace the three-inch brass strike plate
  • Four feet of the door frame absorbs force.
  • The 3.5 inch screws are heavy and three and a half inches, driven into 2×4 studs behind the frame.
  • The three inch screws reinforce the hinges.

Once this system is installed, you’re done. The only additional work is when you lock and unlock the door.

Door reinforcement is just one layer of security that should be complemented with other forms of security like surveillance cameras, motion detection lights and a home security system.

Most burglars aren’t MMA fighters. If the first few kicks fail to rattle a door, they will give up and move on to the next target.

Robert Siciliano is a home and personal security expert to DoorDevil.com discussing Anti-Kick door reinforcement on YouTube. Disclosures.