In order to feel truly safe and secure in your own home, you need to take some positive steps to ensure that would-be burglars cannot easily gain access to your property. There are several things you can do that will help you to accomplish this goal, and the first step should be to secure all of the main entry points to your home; in other words, all of the exterior doors.
Exterior doors should always be made of some type of sturdy material such as solid wood, fiber glass, or metal. If you have any glass panels in your doors, make sure they are reinforced so they can’t be easily broken. You also don’t want to install hollow doors, as these can also be broken into quite easily.
Some other features to look for when purchasing exterior doors include the following:
- A home security system that includes sensors on all of your doors. This is an essential component of a solid security system. If you’re paying for one of these systems, an alarm will immediately go off if someone enters your home illegally through any exterior door.
- Lock your doors! Though it might seem a bit obvious, there are lots of people who either don’t lock their doors when they are home or who forget to lock them when they are leaving the house. You should always keep your doors locked, even when you’re at home enjoying a relaxing day or evening. Burglars have been known to enter homes while the occupants are there, so it’s much safer to simply keep those doors locked at all times.
- Install peepholes in all of your exterior doors. While this is most important for your front door, you should also consider having one of these installed on all of your other exterior doors, especially if any of your other doors might easily be accessed by strangers.
- Use heavy duty, solid quality deadbolt locks. Though it may be tempting to purchase a cheaper model of lock, especially if you’re buying them for several doors, the reality is that you need to choose a good quality, heavy duty deadbolt for all of your exterior doors. These will stand up to a potential intruder much more efficiently than a flimsier, cheaper lock and may help you to keep your home secured.
- Install heavy duty strike plates. Look for a four-screw strike plate with three-inch screws, as this type is the sturdiest and will provide you with the most protection. Why is this so? Because the weakest point of most exterior doors is the strike plate, which is normally just tacked to the molding of the door jamb. If you upgrade to a heavy duty strike plate, you can significantly reduce your chances of having a would-be intruder kick your door in, thereby gaining entry to your home.
Have a dead-lock installed. These are locks that do not have an external key, so they can only be locked and unlocked from inside your home.
