Good Day James Wesley,
I’ve been learning from your site for years and today became a Ten Cent Challenge subscriber.. Thank You!
I too was struck how easily a standard residential entry doors can be opened either by lock “bumping” and even more easily with a stout “kick”.
When I retired last June, one of my first projects suggested by my darling wife was to replace all entry doors to our 1959 brick veneer ranch style house with attached garage.
We wanted at minimum insulated, solid core, steel doors but also spent quite quite a bit of time looking/considering the various fiberglass alternatives. We wanted robust and were less concerned with appearance and were surprised that in virtually all instances, “Big Box” and Contractor Supply “Residential” replacement doors feature “minimalist” wooden frames, or pricey 20 gauge steel [frames], which as pointed out in a prior post, need heavy reinforcement to survive any determined assault.
We therefore chose heavy duty commercial steel doors from Steelcraft. The ones that we bought have 16 gauge galvanized frames and 18 gauge galvanized doors with 90 minute fire ratings.
The Steelcraft choice was due to it’s Ohio operation (freight cost economies, for us) as well as the familiarity we had with local Contractor Supply companies. Regionally, there are a number of similar manufacturers and suppliers for these commercial standard products.
Once we determined the basic specifications we did “shop” the order to three supply houses and one “Big Box” retailer with whom we had positive experience with in sourcing a replacement patio door.
Unfortunately with the Big Box experience we found that their wholesale supplier could provide the doors we wanted but had a “policy” of charging 40% above Contractor pricing!
Needless to say that made for a very simple decision and we ordered from the selected Contractor Supply company three doors [ 2-30×80, 1-36×80 with 4″x24″ tempered glass “lights”] for $1,800 with tax and delivered and an estimated two week lead time due to the three “special” frames needed, as they are made in 1/8″ increments.
We estimated that we could install each door in two days and were almost on target after the first one. (The first one took four days.)
The biggest effort was removal of the old doors/frames and reinforcing the channels in the metal frames to permit their being further secured with 5/8″ x 3” lag screws into the house joists/framing.
Final paint/trims completed the re-dooring and we installed aluminum wood core “storm doors” with exterior openings, Commercial #2 lock sets and reinforced jam openings completed the project to “buy time” in the event an unauthorized entry attempt.
The installation directions from the door manufacturer were right on and I’ll point out that I haven’t done any construction in over 30 years.
Am pleased with the results and would encourage your readers to consider similar action if events continue to evolve since my first read of “Patriots” in 1999. Warmest Regards – Bob F.
Mr. Editor:
To all of those recommending spending money on major door reinforcements, consider that unless the rest of your house is a steel box, this is largely just window dressing. Literally that. The strongest door in the world isn’t going to keep someone out of a house that has man-sized glass-covered holes in it on every wall. We call those windows. Unless you’re on a high floor of an apartment building, or unless you’ve added security grates to all your windows, the best lock in the world might give you peace of mind, but does little more in the way of true security. You might only ever come in through the door, but criminals don’t. – Troy
James,
This is a follow up to the Surviving a Home Invasion Robbery article. If any of your readers have exterior doors that swing outward, they probably have exposed hinge pins. If so, removing the hinge pins can allow an adversary to somewhat quietly and easily remove a door.
A possible solution is to use a couple of specially designed hinge security screws on each hinge. Here is an example of this type of screw. This is not an endorsement for any particular brand of hinge security screw, but just to show your readers what to look for.