Advice to keep in mind when adding security to your house

Your home should be a place where you, your family and possessions are safe. You don't want to be in fear of being attacked or robbed in your own home. Therefore, you should make sure that your property is properly secured. Burglars will bypass houses that have a lot of security measures in place.

While it may take an initial investment to adequately protect your home, this amount will be paid off in the long run as the chances of being robbed will be severely decreased. Even for achieving peace of mind, this investment will be worth every penny. Here is some useful advice to keep in mind when adding security to your property.

Best locks for security purposes

Your first priority should be to make the property extremely hard to gain entry to. If it takes a lot of time or highly specialised tools to gain entry into your home, the burglar will go and seek an easier target. The doors of a property are the most common point of entry for burglars, so you need to pay particular attention to them.

Garage doors and back doors are usually the weakest entry points and are often hidden and obscured from the view of passers-by, making them easy targets. You should use high quality locks on your doors including at least one deadbolt lock on each one. Low quality locks will be susceptible to being lock picked and pried open with force. Your door handle should have a dead catch mechanism whereby the lock cannot be shifted open using a shim.

Contact a company like The Lock and Handle to learn more about door handle and lock options.

Best doors for security purposes

Having doors that have a strong and solid core or are made of metal are the preferred options as they cannot be kicked in. Doors that have wooden jambs can be easily kicked in. You should always choose doors that have no windows on them or nearby, as this is an easy way for the burglar to gain access to the deadbolt lock. If you are adamant on having glass on the door, you should install an additional deadbolt out of reach from the glass pane.

The strike plate that is located on the door jamb is normally the weakest point on the door. Therefore, it needs to be a special security strike plate that is heavy duty and securely fixed into place. These can be commonly found in most hardware stores and will be well worth the investment. When installing any components into your doors or door jamb, you should use longer screws than necessary to provide some extra support.