Protecting Your Family From Robbers There are many things you should do to protect your family. One of the things you will need to do is secure all of the entry ways. While the style of door you select for your home can be important in terms of design, the type of door lock you choose will have an impact on the safety of your family. It is very important that you make sure you choose the right kind of lock or you could put your family at risk.
Safety in the Garage This is particularly important for exterior entrances, entries between garages and living areas, and garage closures. It is important that your garage locks securely even if it is not attached to your home. Many homeowners and homebuilders do not know that there are minimal building codes in regards to locks. Some areas do not even require these to be installed. The builder will probably select the cheapest one possible unless you dictate otherwise. Make sure that you are fully protecting your family by choosing a higher quality of lock. Robbers view these mechanisms from a complete different perspective from you. Most of the time, they see the cheap version and they think, “Oh, good, this home will be quick and easy to get into.�
Finding a Safe Garage Door However, a higher quality mechanism will be more discouraging because the robber then has to deal with the door itself. Most will skip a particular home with a high quality locking mechanism because they know that there are plenty of other homes with lower quality locking mechanisms. Of course, the easiest way for a burglar to enter a home is if you leave your home unoccupied and unlocked. However, it there is a lock present and the robber has to deal with the door, there are many other things that may happen.
For example, he or she will have to do one of the following things. The robber may kick it in, pry it open, spread it apart with a spreader bar, pick or hammer the lock, or drill out the lock. If there are panes of glass, these can be easily broken and then the robber can reach in and unlock the latch. In some cases, a friend’s home may have been previously robbed and the burglar may have obtained the house key from that robbery. The more likely a robber is to be seen and the more challenging it is to get in, the less likely it is that the robber will actually go through with it. In addition to the entrance lock, you should consider several other aspects of your home, such as windows and so forth. It is a very good idea to install a deadbolt on your exterior entryways as these are quite difficult to pick. They will be more effective in keeping criminals out of your home. You should also check to make sure that the deadbolt falls under an ANSI Grade 1 classification. The ANSI grad system is a measurement of how well the deadbolt does in security and durability measurements. ANSI stands for the American National Standards Institute. It has developed a set of standards that high quality deadbolts must adhere to in order to receive a Grade one classification. There are a couple other grading systems out there as well. If the lock you pick up is graded under a different standard, you may want to do some research online to see how it compares. It is also much easier for someone to see what door code you enter when you go into your house than it is for someone to obtain a key. There are also many techniques for protecting your keys from being copied. In general, it is much safer to choose a key operated entry rather than a code operated entry option. You will definitely want to make sure that you control who has keys to your home though. Otherwise, someone may be able to find a way to enter your house uninvited. You may also want to look for a feature called a security strike plate. While every lock comes with one of these, many times they are more decorational than functional. It is important to make sure that your security strike plate is actually provided for function rather than decoration. This is critical because the strike plate is usually where the doorframe is the weakest and it is where a criminal will attack if he or she wants to enter. There are many places that you can obtain a higher quality strike plate. As you keep these things in mind, you will be able to prevent criminals from entering your home. When you do this, you will be providing protection to your family.