Five ways to make any door more secure against break-ins

The "consumer reports" webpage was inferring the kind of wrap-around metal plate such as the ones made by Don-Jo... Commonly used for repairing a door that has been damaged, or adding some small amount of additional security to doors on apartments...

When those plates are installed correctly you would be surprised at what it can offer as far as protection... It is much harder to bash in a wooden door that has a metal plate wrapped around the lock area than it is to bash a "naked door" without one...

Evan, ~~formerly a maintenance man, now a college student...

No real mystery here. Whether the lock is a tubular bolt type or a mortice type, the timber at the weakest point is only 10mm or so thick. I once watched firefighters opening a heavy timber panelled shop door secured by a good five lever mortice lock.-- Crowbar into the edge of the door stile behind the lock, a single blow with a sledge hammer; the timber split clean down the middle, a couple of kicks and the lock fell out onto the ground. Total time?, less than 10 seconds.

The ones you saw at Lowe's were more than likely for residential use.These do provide some solidity,but for the most part are for decoration or covering up retrofitting.

The ones used on commercial and institutional doors are made of thick sheet-mostly stainless,and are bolted clean through with hardened steel sex bolts.

goma.

They prevent someone from drilling the door above the deadbolt housing angled downward and ising an icepick or similar to flip the bolt mechanism back, as well as strengthening the door. The better grade of deadbolts include a steel sleeve to reinforce the lock bore against the icepick attack.