6 Simple and Effective Ways To Strengthen Your Doors

This post was written for SafeWise by the lock expert Ralph Goodman. He is a local locksmith and writes for the United Locksmith Lock Blog.

One of the most important aspects of any home are its doors. Doors play a major role in the security of homes since they are essentially the first point of contact of anyone wishing to enter your home. Some people view doors as a personal statement, while others view them solely as a means of protecting everything within their home.

A door is a gateway. And keeping that gateway strong and secure is a key factor to maintaining exceptional home security. The use of alarms, motion sensors, surveillance cameras, and even our furry best friends are all well and good, but none of these would be entirely effective if your home didn’t have a door.
Why are doors important?

The importance of doors cannot be overstated. They exist as the first barrier between you and the outside world. A door keeps you in, and all the unwanted people out. It is the perfect symbol of privacy.

An open door beckons people inside, while a door that is closed gives people the idea that whoever is behind said door would like to be left alone, or that they want to be notified before anyone attempts to enter. If the world were an ideal place, then a simple request for privacy and closed doors would deter burglars and unwanted guests.

However, since the world is not as ideal as we would all like to think, many of the homes that make use of doors would benefit even more if they increased their strength.

One of the best ways to maximize the security of your home is to make sure that your doors are functioning at their fullest potential. You are probably wondering, “how can one achieve this?” Walk with me my young padawan, and let me outline some simple and effective methods homeowners can employ to strengthen their doors.
Improving the locks

A door is only as strong as the locking mechanism that holds it in place. The door to your home might be made of the strongest material known to man. However, if the lock on the door is sub-par, your door can easily be broken down and the lock will be bypassed. Granted, it wouldn’t take a considerable amount of work to knock the door down, but with the right locks in place your doors are given renewed strength. There are some homeowners who do not put great emphasis on the locks that they use on their doors. This is a dangerous thing to do because of the number of methods that burglars can use to bypass a lock.

There are several good ways improve the locks on your door. If you have Euro Cylinder Locks, you can either replace them or upgrade to ones that are equipped with anti-snap cylinders. Euro Cylinder locks are a good example of locks that are easily bypassed. Homeowners can also look into adding security pins in their lock mechanism or even changing the material that the springs in their locks are made of. These minor additions work well to increase the efficiency of your locks. This also makes it considerably more difficult for anyone that attempts to pick the locks on your door. In addition to the methods described above, you can switch out your locks to Grade 1 Deadbolts which work superbly well. You can employ one of these options or use them altogether. No matter what you decide to do, I can assure that your door will be a lot stronger than it used to be.
Reinforcing the strike plate

Strike plate
The strike plate is a very important component of any door. A door that has a good strike plate offers additional strength and resistance against intruders. For those of you who do not know what a strike plate is, keep reading. The more traditional strike plate is the latch strike plate. The latch strike plate allows the door to open or close in two different motions. The first is when pressure is applied to the door knob, which allows the latch to retract and the door to be opened. The second motion occurs without any pressure being applied to the door knob. The latch is retracted once it comes into contact with the lip. The lip is the shiny curved metal piece that is affixed into the door frame. That shiny little component and the portion of the door frame that the latch gets affixed to, are what comprise a traditional strike plate. Traditional strike plates are not made with safety in mind, but are instead geared toward enhancing the motion of opening and closing the door.

It is advised that homeowners who only have locks, which make use of the latch mechanism, improve their security by upgrading to deadbolts. This does not necessarily mean that you have to do away with the lock you already have in place. You can work on adding a deadbolt to the door to increase its maximum security. This will allow you to continue to use your door in the way you are already accustomed to, while also having an additional layer of security with the added strike plate. For homeowners that already have deadbolts installed as the locks on their doors, you can increase the ov