Protecting Your Family With Locks The door to your home is a very important part of the safety of your belongings and your family. When your front and other outside doors are properly shut and locked, your family should feel safe and secure at night. The door you choose to guard your family will be one of the primary defenses that you will have against burglars and other criminals. If there have be robberies and other thefts in your area lately, then you may want to consider evaluating the secureness of this out defense carefully to ensure the safety of your family. If the door you have is not up to current safety standards, than you will want to consider replacing it with something that can bring greater peace of mind to your family. There are many things you will need to consider in order to fully protect your family.
The Right Materials The first thing you consider is what the door is made out of. It should be constructed of fiberglass, solid wood, have a solid wood core with a layer or veneer over the solid wood, or metal. These things are hard to break through in a short amount of time with minimal noise and without being noticed. Their hollow counterparts are much easier to break through without noticeable noise as they are made out of sheets of veneer and cardboard. Thieves have learned how to recognize these flimsy entryways and they know how easily they can be broken in. If you decide on installing a metal entryway, you will want to make sure that it is reinforced from the inside. You can do this with a lock block. The lock block effectively prevents it from being bent out of the frame with a car jack. Once the shape is lost, the thief can easily kick it open. However, with a lock block, this will be very preventable.
Protecting Your Entryways The second thing you should consider is whether or not you are in the habit of locking your entryways. This is an extremely critical habit to develop.
Sadly, most robberies actually occur because they find that the entryways are left unlocked. As they can simply walk in, many of the neighbors do not think anything is wrong and they are often unnoticed until the damage is done or until well after he or she has left. You can have the most advanced locks available and they will not be effective if you do not use them. They are completely useless unless you properly set them before you leave. You and your children should get in the habit of locking them every time that you leave your home. Even if you only plan to be gone for half an hour, it is a very good idea. Burglars can do a lot of damage in a very short period of time and you do not want to take this risk. It is also a good idea to lock the locks when you are home alone or when night falls as burglars may also choose these times to strike. The third thing you will want to consider is the quality of the locks you have installed. Deadbolt locks are quite effective in protecting your family because they cannot be picked. They can also be installed on all types of doors, except for sliding glass doors. Make sure that you install one of these deadbolt locks on every exterior entryway that you can. Some people only fortify their main entryway and leave their side entryways exposed to criminals. This is a grave mistake. Most thieves would rather enter through a protected and partially hidden sideway rather than through the main door. You should make sure that the deadbolts you install are high quality with a grade of one or two. They should also be made completely of metal with no screws on the outside. The best ones have a throw bolt that is at least one inch long. The throw bolt is the metal bar that emerges from the door and goes into the wall. Thieves have figured out how to open those that have a throw bolt less than one inch in length. However, if you keep all of these things in mind, you will prevent the thief from entering through that particular door. This is extremely important to the safety of your family. You will want to take these precautions as soon as you can so that you do not end up regretting it later. Fortunately, the safety of your family is completely in your hands.