Security is the central consideration for everyone when it comes to their home. You want to feel safe, secure and relaxed within the confines of your own home and knowing nobody can penetrate your external doors is a huge part of this. As the primary access points to your home, your front and back doors need to adhere to security standards.
Are Composite Doors Secure?
How easy would it be to kick your front door in? That’s probably not something you think about when you’re considering your home’s security, but kicking through a flimsy external door is one of the easiest ways to break into a house.
One of the reasons that we always recommend our composite materials for a house’s front and back doors is because the ABS plastic reinforcement that runs through them makes them much, much harder to break through than a standard uPVC door. Not all Nottingham made composite doors are as secure as ours. Some are predominantly made from uPVC, making them vulnerable. Modern composite doors available from KLG Rutland meet high security standards and beyond.
Locking Mechanisms
The lock on your front or back door is its most important safety feature, but old-fashioned doors only lock at a single latch, which could be easily broken. Modern composite doors available at KLG Rutland all come with a ‘secured by design’ multi-point locking system, which engages at several points around the door frame. This is far more secure than a regular single-point locking door and makes it far more difficult for the door to be broken into. Our composite doors are secured by German-engineered Winkahus locks which are some of the most advanced on the market. It would be incredibly difficult to break open a multi-point locking composite door, but we do also offer extra security chains for extra peace of mind.
Reinforced Materials
Another key security feature of composite doors is the combination of materials used to craft the door itself. Manufactured from compression moulded Glass Reinforced Polymer (GRP), composite doors are incredibly strong and incredibly difficult to break. This GRP is bonded to a composite frame and then reinforced with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) running through the middle of the door for ultimate strength. Put simply, it would take an unbelievable amount of force to break through this combination of materials, meaning your house is as safe as can be.
How Do You Burglar Proof A Patio Door?
Patio doors are another matter. The material used around the frame of the door won’t cause any problems. Instead, someone trying to break in will focus on the glass. We provide double glazing with all our doors as standard, which is much harder to break than single glazing. We can even provide triple glazing on certain doors for additional security.
A determined person may still break through double or triple glazing, but it will be much harder to get through than single glazing and breaking it will be incredibly loud, which will alert your neighbours if you’re not at home.
Other Home Security Tips
1. Keep your curtains open and shut as normal
Also make sure that your home always looks occupied, especially when you go away for a few days. Try to keep your curtains/blinds shut (and open) as you would when you’re in – something you can usually persuade a trusted friend to pop round for. This is a good deterrent that can stop your window and door security systems from being tested.
2. Set a timer for your lights
Leave a couple of lights on in the evening – it’s easy enough to set occasional lights on a timer switch. This adds to the illusion that you’re still at home.
3. Leave a car in the drive
If you need your car for the holiday, encourage neighbours to use your drive while you’re gone.
4. Keep expensive items out of site
You don’t want to advertise that you have stuff worth stealing, so make sure that any valuable items are hidden from view when you leave the house, especially if you’re out for the evening or away for a number of days.
5. Don’t hide keys in ‘clever’ places
It’s easy to do – leave a key under a plant pot for a neighbour to find or to bail you out when you forget your keys in the morning – but ‘clever’ hiding places normally aren’t so clever. Most burglars know the standard places that keys are left and if they get find yours, any security measures you have will be useless. If you have to leave a spare key out, install a wall safe with a secure combination lock to keep it locked away.
6. Install a recognised intruder alarm
Having a recognised intruder alarm box high up on the wall is always a good deterrent. Bear in mind that many burglars will know what brand names are likely to be dummies if you take the risk of not installing a ‘live’ system!
7. Keep outdoor items locked away
Bikes are often the targets of burglars, especially if they can’t get into the house. Keep yours locked away in a garage or out of sight in the garden with all the gates locked properly. It’s also a good idea to keep any other garden hardware you have out of sight.