High Security Strikes

If you have a good deadbolt-yes. Make sure you don't have a lightswitch or outlet next to the door-this could be a prob.

Are you using the LORI?

Yes, I'm going to purchase the Lori/Ilco. It's strike plate is also only two bolts into the frame.

Four screws is stronger than two.

Hope you either have a lot of space between the door and jamb, or that you are good with a chisel.

I bought the strikes yesterday and made a router template for the mortises. Once the template was done I was able to route mortises for

4 doors in about 10 minutes. Then I only needed to square up the corners with a chisel.

You need to consider the whole package. The strength of the door, the strength of the lock and the strength of the frame.

The yahoo kicking in your door doesn't give a rats ass what he breaks as long as he gets in.

The strike you are asking about is good, but not necessarily any better than the factory supplied strike of a good quality dead bolt.

Consider the construction of the door frame. Typically you will have a piece of soft wood about 5/8 thick. you will have a gap between the jam and the wood framing of about 1/4 to 1/2 inch before you have a soft wood stud.

Now consider your front door. It is probably 1 3/4" thick. The lock is going to require an edge boar of 1" that will give you 3/8 of an inch of wood to support the lock.

Now there is probably a gap between the door and the frame. In high quality construction by a good finish carpenter the gap is minimal as the door and frame is beveled to allow the door to swing and the front corner to clear, but in most newer construction they leave a bigger gap and leave the edge of the door square. Typically the gaps on tract houses will run between 1/8 and 3/8.

When a door is kicked in the weakest part of the system will fail. Sometimes the door splits, sometimes the frame will yield. Seldom dies the lock fail even the cheaper ones although they might be subject to other forms of attack.

Often simple things like good visibility and proper lighting will do more to discourage a burglary than spending tons of money on hardware. Other things like leaving a radio playing to a talk station or having some lights on timers helps discourage the burglar from choosing your house.

They're breaking into houses in the middle of the day, coming right through the front door with a crowbar in my neighborhood. I have to do something.

Well just imagine spending all of this time reinforcing your doorways to find out the burglars decide to smash a window in order to gain entry into your house... A large enough "crow bar" will take just about any standard residential door clean out of its frame if the person using it has any skill whatsoever...

Spend less time, energy, and money on door locks and invest in an alarm system... Especially one with a loud siren unit and central monitoring... Your door can be smashed in during the day when everyone is at work and no one will know until people come home... An alarm system will alert the police to the actual time the crimes are occurring and possibly assist in solving the pattern of criminal behavior in your neighborhood... Given the brazen nature of the break-ins if I were you I would be more concerned about an alarm summoning assistance than making your doors harder to bash in...

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

Time to sell up and move to a nice neighborhood !

That is probably true, however there has been one failed attempt in the neighborhood so far. Therefore, it can't hurt to strengthen my door in the hopes that it might be enough to foil an amateurish attempt at my house...

Flawed methodology. Any security specialist will tell you to secure the perimeter first and foremost to the utmost of your ability, and then rely on an alarm as secondary protection only. Once the burglar gets far enough beyond the perimeter to set off the alarm, he's most likely in the house which is precisely what you want to avoid.

I already have one, but sophisticated burglars are not deterred by loud sirens. They, in fact, are usually quite in tune with police response time for a particular neighborhood and will continue to rummage through a home until the last possible second when the know the police will arrive.

4 bolts into the subframe through a larger strike plate is a quick and easy way to add some extra security - a couple hours well spent. Is it foolproof? Of course not. But it certainly doesn't hurt.

I am rightfully concerned about both. I have people home during the day that I don't want to be confronted by an intruder. The last home invasion resulted in all 3 perpetrators being aprehended. All 3 were armed. 1 waited in the car while the other 2 crowbared the front door open. A 12 year old girl was home, and she ran upstairs and hid in a closet with a cell phone. She called grandma on the cell phone. Grandma called the cops who arrived in time to catch all three. That's too close for comfort.

Heh. Well, this isn't exactly a barrio.... Perhaps that's the problem.

Wish she had some NRA training and a .410?

Sounds good to me.

In article snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com writes

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I agree with your approach of strengthening the door and frame to discourage intruders but you may have to do a lot of work to achieve a worthwhile gain. I've just reinforced a door and frame setup for a UK city centre location and am pleased to say that it will resist most kicking and crowbar attacks but it cost a lot in time and parts to meet that level so don't expect too much from $10 hardware.

For starters, UK standards for fire and security mean that the frame was solid wood of about 1 1/4" thickness and the door was solid core 1 3/4". I reinforced the frame with 1/8"x1" steel strip on the inside edge held with 3" screws every 6" top to bottom on both lock and hinge sides. The door was reinforced with 1/8"x4" steel plates front & back, lock and hinge side, bolted through every 6". Extra steel on the frame aligns to the door plates to makes crowbar attacks more difficult (no gaps). Locks are a pair of UK insurance grade mortice locks, one each at shoulder and knee height to spread the load from attack, hinge side has 3x4" heavy duty hinges on heavy duty screws.

To back this up the property is alarmed and has shock sensors mounted on the frame to detect forced entry attempts.

By UK standards, the strike you pointed to is a good for length and number of fixings but would fail by not being a boxed strike, ie not having some protection for the bolt to resist thrust attack.

Be aware that the work I carried out would cost you $1000+ from a locksmith so the risk you are protecting needs to be worthwhile or be prepared to work hard on DIY.

HTH

You bet. There's no better protection than a handy Smith & Wesson.

Ottawa canada

My advice is for you to install the following in this order to secure your home:

1. Reinforced doors on all entrances to your house, garage etc;

1. Burglar Bars on all Windows, lrge and small on your house and outbuildings;

1. Darn good door locks on all doors;

1. high security direct alarm system on the house and outbuildings for fire, burglary and other perils;

2. motion detector operated lights and video cameras all around your property;

1. Security cameras in the house

2. Panic button for the alarm system in case you are home when the robbers call;

1. Firearms and marksmanship courses for all adults living in the house;

2. Air Raid style siren atop your house, sounds when you press panic button or forced entry;

1. Store particularly valuable items and keepsakes > They're breaking into houses in the middle of the day, coming right

I agree. The type of attack you describe is most effective against cheap construction. consider if your bolt is 1" and the gap in the door is 1/4" then the crook with the crowbar only has 3/4" to go. if the door has that environmentally correct soft weather stripping it allows enough flex to get a good bite with the crow bar. With a good bite more than a thousand pounds of force can then be applied to the gap and if there is enough flex between the frame and the hinge side of the door, the frame and the jam side of the door the jam and the studs and the compression of all the components, that

3/4" is pretty easy to find.

If you wanted a better type of lock to resist spreading / crowbar attacks, you might want to consider a "jimmy proof" or vertical dead bolt. Segal makes a good one.

Now consider the other things I suggested. If someone on the outside of the house thinks there might be someone inside they keep walking down the street.

Good idea. I think I might install some of these right above my conventional deadbolts. Are the Ilcos any good?

Thanks!

They are OK but they are die cast and the Segal is solid bronze. It also has other security features that the Ilco does not.

Since this is a rim lock it will work with any standard rim cylinder so you can have one key fits all.

I looked at the Ilco at my local Ace Hardware, and it is indeed chinsey. I've been thinking about the installation, and one challenge is going to be the casing/moulding around the interior of my door. It is not a flat surface. I guess I can route a flat square section out of it to receive the strike, but I'm not sure how that'll look.

I assume this is a common obstacle with these locks, no?