Strenghening the houses defense.

Expensive overall, but I favor the hardening approach. But some of the simple tips like the broomhandle in the sliding track are very good too.

In addition to steel door frames, doors and windows; I like the old fashioned steel shutters. They can be faced with wood as to look nice of course.
 
OK, gentlemen, hate to tell you guys this, but with a cordless drill and 30 seconds of time I can be through your locks!

About the only hope you have is being aware that someone is "out" there moving around. This can mean motion sensors in the driveway (I use em', but damn the cats at 2 in the morning) combined with camera monitors...also in use!

I have a "steel" security door on both front and back doors, so there are 4 locks to drill through!

Also since the steel security doors open "outward" the doors have to either be pulled "off" or the locks compromised. Can't just walk up to em' and kick real hard...the inside doors can be kicked open and have "gremlins" on top of you before you could react!

The advantage of the motion detectors in combination with the cameras is that you can check the monitor and see "who/what" is moving about without exposing yourself to risk...you can get see in the dark cameras for $30.00 and wire them into a "cheap" (thrift store) T.V. Once the motion detector awakes you roll over, click on the t.v. and see what the F*** is going on!

A dog is an excellent alarm system...always praise the animal when it shows that "something" is outside. Never discourage this behavior!
A few years ago, hot weather, people were leaving their windows open, someone was coming into their houses and stealing purses/wallets. The dogs that the people had didn't let out a peep!

As for sliding glass doors, I would suggest that you get one of the "roll up" doos that can be installed inside. When you are gone, roll down the security door. This means that they have to "open/destroy" the glass sliding door, then worry about the security door. These are expensive, and they work like a roll up garage door!

Security should be layed, primeter, front doors/windows, and finally the shotgun to show them the error of their ways!
 
On a steel door locks can be protected with a welded steel plate box with the thickest plate on the outer face leaving just enough room to maneuver in the key to turn it.

That'll keep 'em busy for awhile.
 
Again, if you have to put a key into the lock, I can drill out the pins. At work we had some electrical (13,000 volts) being brought into the plant.

Someone on Saturday had taken the key home from the computer room. I didn't want to stay over (worked graveyard) and spend my morning "picking" the security lock (Schlege), so told them how to drill it. Took all of 2 minutes to get through a $180.00 lock!

To try and pick the damn thing would probably have taken me a couple of hours...6 pins, deep recessed...just use a 1/16 inch drill bit and then insert a screw driver and your in...So, sorry to tell you, but locks don't really mean much. They are only there to keep honest people honest!

Many years ago worked in power plants. Came into work one day and everybodys "knack" box had been broken into except mine. Thought for a couple of minutes they were gonna hang me. But, showed them that I was using an American barrel lock, were as they were using #5 master locks.

Someone had taken a drill and drilled their locks out, taking all of their expensive tools. Since mine had a center post (vending machine type lock) it couldn't be drilled. It wa only because the lock smith I went to didn't have any of the master locks that I purchased the $25 dollar locks instead of the $15 master...saved me $1,000 or so in tools!

I have a lot of "dead" time at work so took a locksmithing course a few years ago...have taken several correspondance courses throughout the years to make the time go a little faster in the boler room!
 
Getting a dog or two and keeping a shotgun handy is one thing, placing landmine signs and the like is a bit, creepy. Living in NY as I do the images conjured up are a bit "unusual" so forgive my attitude, but it looks like you are living in Iraq, not California. Are we a wee bit paranoid here? I mean, live as you like of course, but I can't imagine living my life, or having my family live in that frame of mind. Its like 1970's Rhodesia for cripes sake. :eek:
 
Home security is a joke for the most part.

If someone wants in bad enough, they're in.

Anything that'll keep out a determined intruder will have to maim or kill them, likely putting you on the long end of Bubba's stick. ;)

It's possible to fortify your home to do this, but then you've got the problem of living in an inverse prison, and you have to be ever-vigilant to use the security, because the day you don't is they day they will (break in).

Gates, grills, so called 'security' locks, etc...all breachable by those with the tools and know-how.

Yes, you can keep out punks, but not professional criminals or SWAT.

Glass panels the size of walls? Just leave the door open at night...then you won't have to clean up the broken glass after you've been burglarized. :)

PS: I've noticed that a lot of people [not just here] use the term 'robbed', when referring to their stuff being stolen. 'Robbed' is only when your stuff is taken from you, by force and with your awareness of this fact (like at gun point), not by sneak-thieves who break into your house while you are gone.
 
Claude783
Again, if you have to put a key into the lock, I can drill out the pins
Click to expand...
Alittle tough getting a drill inside a small box about eight inches long and just a few inches deep - unless you happen to have a real trick flexy with a 90 degree end bit. You can of course drill through the plate first - or attack it with a grinder. But of course with the right tools and cutting gear a vault is not foolproof either.
 
Couple of thoughts guys --

Cut broom handle or pipe et al for sliding doors works but i have had problems with compliance on these from my other half so what our old place and soon our new place as well will have for the sliding doors is pins that pass through the track right behind the door in a closed position. I used aircraft pins from McMaster (thing of a larger AR15 take down pin) at the old place on cains so they did not get lost. Any force needed to dislodge them would liekly break the window/ track as well. Can also be placed on some sliding windows.

An excellent point about getting trapped in your own fortress ---- always remember if you have a keyed inside / outside deadbolt to place a key to it somewhere near the door for fire / emergency use --- in our old palce we had a spare thumb tacked up on the inner door trim.

One friend of mine when I lived back east had a second floor condo where he had made his own burgular bars from wood painted flat black, Impossible to tell they were not metal from the street and if the BG went up there then they were probibly gona get in one way or another.

As to big windows and pieces of glass etc, a lot of places that sell bullet proof lexan and glass will have used pieces or remnants that they will sell very cheap if you aproach them, we never needed this for the home but came in handy as a cheap source of lexan for some projects including making new wing windows for hard to fit old trucks.

I personally like a No Trespassing sign even in suburban Phoenix --- I think it sends the right message --- I'm not food, move on. I am not fond of any type of joke sign that mentions firearms, landmines etc ---- you are opening yourself up to liability plus might make you more of a target. At the very liest "No Trespassing" will probibly keep folks selling salvation, cookies, hams or whatever else away.

Having a dog is also a great idea and GSD is the best but then I am biased, just make sure you look around for an excellent example of whatever your chosen breed is, just make sure you have a plan of what to do if someone does break in.
 
While there is merit in some of the statements about big glass walls, locks being drillable, and a determined bg: at the same time it never can be the idea to "Keep them OUT".

All one can do is make it less desireable, more of an obstacle, noisy, dangerous, not profitable, etc., in an effort to persuade the bg's to leave you personally alone. I know that means he goes elsewhere, . . . but if you can discourage him enough, . . . who knows, . . . maybe he'll get a day job. :D

There are locks that virtually cannot be drilled but they are expensive, . . . lexan windows cannot be broken, shattered, splintered, . . . only sawn or drilled, . . . and the wrong cleaner will ruin them, . . . but every "hardening" has a price. If you are willing to pay it, . . . it will make the place less desireable to rob.

May God bless,
Dwight
 
OK, you've just hardened your house, it's more like a fortress, $1,000 locks, high tech windows..the whole nine yards.

Now some pissed off "gremlin" comes along with a can of spray insulation foam and sprays the crap into your locks...guess what?

How are you gonna get into your fortress?

Put a locking gas cap on your car and someone puts superglue into the lock...next scene your prying off your own gas cap...if the gremlins can't get in to steal, they "gum" up the works and make life a little more difficult for the poor devil trying to preserve what little he has acquired in this life!

This battle between gremlins and humans has been going on as long as there have been wealthy people...the tombs of Egypt come to mind, most of the treasures were probably looted shortly after the pharoe was buried with his goodies!
 
Now some pissed off "gremlin" comes along with a can of spray insulation foam and sprays the crap into your locks...guess what?
Click to expand...
Then along comes a few cans of spray solvent; and hey, presto.

And there are ways to make things open/close and lock/unlock that would leave most people guessing at how it might be done. I am not talking about magic - just some simple engineering and basic science. No conventional locks or keys needed.
 
Just as a matter of interest concerning housebreaking. Some years ago there was a fellow who used a car jack to spread the door jambs so that the lock would be useless and the door could be pushed open. After the burg he removed the jack and the door was re-locked. Cunning eh? Took us some time to figure that one out I can tell you.
 
one. Yeah there are solvents for foam in a can.
two. If I want in and I do not care about hiding it, I am in.
(several years ago I was working for a national home builder and I got a call from the office, a young mom had walked out to grab the mail and the little one had slammed the door behind her, and she was panicking becasue she could not see the little one any more. As I was a short distance away from the home I drove over and in twenty seconds i was in the home. A cordless sawzall had cut a neat 1 foot by 2 foot hole next to the garage service door and I stuck my head and shoulders in the house and unlocked the door.)
Three. sliding glass doors and jam bars. they work well if you put the jamb side on a small hinge, you have to pick up the stick to open the door and it falls into place when you close the door.
Four. A very good friend who is a big city cop told me once they never had to tie up a dog when responding to a burglary call.
Five. Any dog will do. a german shepard is good but so is a lab, a mutt, a yapper dog. A yapper dog that will wake you up when the BG walks onto your yard is better than a german shepard that waits for the perp to enter the dwelling.
six. Blocking doors is easy and simple. A length of material that prevents the forcing of a door is a simple fix.
seven. motion senser lights can easily be wired into a doorbell system too.
this is the best deterence, making BG think you know he is out there, I have ALL my motion detectors except the garage/driveway wired into one circuit. The parts all came from ww graingers, but it goes like this. If the motion detectors notice something, during the day they trip a doorbell type alarm in the house, at night they would also trip the photo cell lights and ring the door bell and ALL the lights go one at once. Front, both sides, back and from the way backyard aimed at the house, all go one at once. Yeah it looks like a prison break but it has worked and it has stopped a few neighbors kids who were going to TP the house too. We also have one indoor light wired to the exterior motion detectors, so when the outside light gets tripped so does an inside light, as if I was there and had turned on a light to see what was happening.
eight. ALL other exterior lights are wired to three switch locations. In the small hall outside the upstairs bedrooms, downstairs by my daughters bedroom and the family room and the third by the front door are switch locations which allow for the entire yard to be illuminated from one spot.
All of these light and switch changes were relatively simple and cost me under five hundred for the parts, I installed them myself.
nine. ALL of this is well and good, but do not show off what you have. I was hired to help reinforce the doors and windows of a house that had a very very valuable art work, lights. gates, window defense etc. Then the homeowner brings in the local paper to show them her new art work and proceeds to tell the reporter everything we did to strengthen the security of the house. Three days later a thief stole a pickup truck and drove thru the front of the house, stole the painting and drove off with an accomplice in another car. 1.7 million gone in under a minute.
 
"Some years ago there was a fellow who used a car jack to spread the door jambs so that the lock would be useless and the door could be pushed open. After the burg he removed the jack and the door was re-locked. Cunning eh? Took us some time to figure that one out I can tell you."

The above is a fire department trick, though we usually would use a hydro-ram --- one of the hand pump kits. If you really want to learn how to get into anything --- though not always in the most delicate of manners go to fire school.

As a side not on the security and quality of the pre-hung doors, I can remember my fire school instructor (Batallion Chief in Jersey City) telling us we would know we were getting good when we could knock one out casement and all.

The point that nothing is impenetrable is a good one to remember not Just in terms of bad guys --- also in terms of firefighter or for that matter anyone's escape from a hostile situation ---- offten a wall is easier to breach than a security door. Sad but true more than one fireman has perished trying to make an escape through a super secure door with tools that jsut as easily could have breached the wall.

Goblins with spray foam can do worse than mess up a lock --- neighbor had his muffler filled with the crap.
 
"Yeah there are solvents for foam in a can."

What are they? Once isocyanate foam cures by absorbng moisture the reaction is not reversable. You can eat the foam with strong acids (nitiric and sulfuric come to mind) but it does not 'disolve' in any way.
 
glass gard

The following site is one of several that make films to put on windows that greatly increase their ability to withstand impacts and breakage.

http://www.sunbeltfilms.com/glass_gard/

Tempered glass is very weak. I once was installing a sliding bolt on the bottom of a sliding glass door to enhance it's locking ability. One screw was a little longer than the others and as I tightend it the tip contacted the glass, inside the frame, and the whole glass panel in the door turned to little glass cubes and fell out of the door. The tempered glass is designed that way so if someone runs into the closed door they are not injured by sharp glass edges and glass spears.

Laminated glass will obviously work but it is expensive to replace all of your standard glass with laminated. Additionally the glass my not fit in your window frame since it is often a little thicker.

The films can be applied to the glass you already have in place. Some you can do yourself others need to be professionally installed. Some of the latter can resist small caliber projectiles.

The glass films can also be used to reduce the ability of someone to see into the house and reduce the amount of sunlight, hence heat, coming into the room and thus reduce your air-conditioning load.

Tom
BayProfs
 
"Tempered glass is very weak."

Tempered glass is significantly stronger than conventional glass and far moer scratch resistant. The tempering process produces the extra strength, along with the ability to crumble and not create shards.
The process creates internal stresses in the glass between the surface and the main volume. Anything that pierces the hardened surface immediately relieves the stress and causes the desired fracture behavior. The edges are one of the most vulnerable places since a chip here almost always shatters the piece.
Tempered glass can typically be crumbled using a self striking center punch.
 
Best doors on the planet!!!! Home defense

I spent a couple years in Russia, and this post made me think of the typical door on a Russian apartment.



Go here, and click on the image of the door on the right...

http://www.door.ru/c_stal90.php



Absolutely awesome steel doors in Russia. Everyone has them, and the locks are really sweet too.

In all actuality, the things are more like vault doors than home doors, but I'd love to have one!


Usually they're heavy sheets of steel, covered with a more attractive wood panel (or more often vinyl, although that's kind of ugly). And the frame around the door is completely laid over and with an overhanging steel layer to prevent people from prying in.

And, many people have another regular wooden door behind that steel door.

Plus, you never find windows on the first 2-3 floors that don't have a good strong set of bars on them. You just don't. One apartment I lived in had a second floor balcony, and I accidentally left the windows open while I was gone once. Came back, and someone had crawled in and stole some clothes and US dollars (and they ate a canister of cashews I had sent to me from Costco in the USA--that hurt!!).

After that, I made the landlord put bars on my balcony. Some great pictures. Maybe I'll post 'em sometime.
 
Russian locks

Here's a view of a typical russian lock. The keys are really unique too if you scroll down to the bottom.

http://www.door.ru/c_cisa_locks.php


These locks were actually made in Italy, according to the website, but they look like an average russian lock, and the website is out of Moscow.
 
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