Tips for Preventing Break-Ins

Aside from having quality locks installed on your doors, there are other deterrents are important to utilize to help prevent a home break-in.

1. Lighthing—Many thieves rely on the cover of darkness to carry out their evil deeds. One way to remove this luxury is to have lighting installed in key points of your home and yard. It is ideal to have a porch light by the door and some motion detector lights pointed at the drive way and the yard. When you are not home to run the lights yourself, utilize a timer to turn the lights on and off to give the appearance that somebody is there.
2. Cameras—Security surveillance is no longer just for businesses and the wealthy. Home camera systems are now widely available for home consumers. Cameras can help provide the video evidence needed to catch criminals and assist in other legal matters. If you don’t want to go with the whole camera system, setup some decoy cameras to add the appearance of surveillance.
3. Yards—Maintain your yard and keep your plants, trees, and bushes trimmed. You do not want to leave any area for someone to hide in.
4. Window Locks—Often, windows are the most used to opening to break in to your home. Your main option is to use the pre-installed locking mechanisms on the window. You secondary options include resistance bars, screw on locks, and other devices that block the window from being slid open.
5. Fencing & Gates—The goal of gates and fences was always to keep some in and others out. Options for them range in purely functional to decorative and functional. Having a gate and fencing is a great way to add another layer of the annoyance factor to a criminal.

Your best bet of all is to actively use all of the locks and security measures currently in your home. And if you feel you need more, then seek out a locksmith or somebody to install further security options.

Methods Burglars Will Use to Gain Entry to Your Home

There are various methods a burglar will use to enter your home. The most classically known is that of picking a lock, but this requires skill that most home invaders will not have. The majority of criminals will go for a simpler approach.

These methods include, but are not limited to:

1. Brute Force—The intruder will attempt to simply kick in the door or otherwise attempt to force their way in by breaking the door itself.
2. Break the lock—The burglar will attempt to pry the lock off of the door. This may also include trying hammer or saw the lock off.
3. Breaking the Glass—If you have glass in your front door, the burglar can break it in an attempt to unlock your door knob and dead-bolt from behind. If your locks are accessible through this method, it is suggested that you use a dead-bolt that has a keyed lock on both sides. Even if they can unlock the door knob, the dead-bolt will still be in place.
4. The Door was simply unlocked—Some people are very trusting and neglect to lock their doors when they leave, while others simply forget. This of course, is an easy target for home invaders.
5. Drilling a Lock—As I mentioned, Lock picking is a skill that most thieves will not have. To get by locks, some people will just try to simply drill out your lock and open the door from there.
6. Spare Keys—Often times, people will hide a spare key somewhere outside of their house. Or give a key to a neighbor when they go out of town. You have no idea who is watching you hide your key, or what your neighbor does with the spare key. A good number of crimes are committed towards people by the people they know.

Some Options For More Door Security

When you think of the door in your home, what are the choices that come to mind? Most people just think of the traditional doorknob lock and a deadbolt. And for the most part this is a working fully functional combination. But sometimes you want to add a little more deterrents to you door.

A few examples of these extra deterrents:

1. The Chain Lock—Good for when you want to open the door, but not all of the way. Attaches to your door and the doorframe or a stud near your door. How far you can open the door will depend on the length of the chain and how far apart you installed the chain unit and the chain receiver.
2. The Flip Lock—Good for adding a little resistance to the brute force opening of your door. The unit is installed into the doorframe with a metal piece that flips and locks into the base to keep the door shut.
3. The Door Guard—Similar to the chain lock, but it is solid pieces of metal instead of a chain. This style of locks allows the partial opening of the door, good for when you want to see who is at the door before letting them in.
4. The Barrel Bolt—The classic design, similar to a bolt-action rifle. The lock is locked and unlocked by lifting the knob on the bolt out of the locking slot; sliding the bolt into the housing for the bolt and sliding the knob back down into the other locking slot. The Barrel Bolt can be installed either horizontally or vertically on your door.

These are optional additional locks you may want to add to your front door or to other rooms of you house. They require no keys, though I have seen chain locks that offer a lock and key option.

Door Reinforcement—The Door Club

In the early 1990’s “The Club” was a popular leader in the car theft prevention market. On that acclaim, the makers of “The Club” chose to introduce an entry for the home. Their new product was “The Door Club”, which was advertised as better security than a deadbolt. The objective of “The Door Club” is to reinforce your door and to prevent brute force break ins. To achieve this goal, “The Door Club” is a set of accessories for your door, including a floor plate that is installed into your flooring. In this floor plate will go the anchor, which will provide the resistance to opening the door. There is also a kick plate to prevent marking on your door, and a storage caddy to keep the anchor while it is not in use.

Do keep in mind, that to install “The Door Club”, you will need wood and probably masonry drills to properly set the floor plate for the anchor to slide into. Not that it should stop anybody from having one installed by your local locksmith. Just be aware that it goes into your floor, and some people may not want to damage their floors.

Being able to withstand over 2 tons of force is one of the impressive selling points of this unit, as is mentioned in this early 1994 commercial.

Guns are investments, and like your other investments, you want to protect them. You also want to keep them hidden away from thieves and your children, so what better way than with a safe. There are various types of safes available, which differ in sizes and construction material. To start your search, assess the sizes of your current firearms and any you may plan to purchase in the future. You want just enough space, but maybe a little extra for other stuff. You will probably end up storing your other valuables in the safe as well.

When choosing your safe, consider the following:

• Materials: Your best bet is all around heavy gauge steel. You want the whole safe to be thick, not just the door.
• Look for a safe with internal hinges. External hinges are a security risk.
• Look for a safe that can be bolted to the floor. It is just another good deterrent.
• Opt for a fireproof safe. Check out the fire ratings.
• Decide on a style of lock. This will be keyed, combination, or a digital keypad. Or sometimes a combination of two styles.
• Look for customizable interiors. You may want to configure the racks and shelves in different ways.
• Welds are another point of attack, so find a safe with little to no visible weld seams.

Wall safes are that classic feature of mansions and executive offices you see in TV and movies. I’ve found a couple of sites with some basic installation guidelines.

1. Choose a safe that will fit in the area you want to install it in.
2. Locate your wall studs. Your safe will be anchored to them, so find a spot in between the studs.
3. Measure out a large enough opening between the studs that your safe will fit into.
4. Be mindful of the electrical wiring when cutting out the opening. Reroute and move the wires if they are in the way..
5. Re-enforce any excessive gaps between the drywall hole and the studs with extra wood shims. This also depends on how your safe mounts. Your safe may mount with screws from the inside of the safe or it may have some mounting bolts .
6. Once your safe is installed and secured to the studs, you can patch up any damaged spots.

Tips for selecting a Deadbolt Lock for your Home

• Choose a lock that has been labeled “ANSI GRADE 1”. This means the locks has been tested and approved by the American National Standards Institute. And is therefore rated high in quality.
• Look for deadbolts that are resistant to saws. You want something with hardened steel. Whether it is the whole lock or just an insert. Soft metals like brass will be more susceptible to cutting.
• Get the longest deadbolt bar your door can support. This will help to prevent your door from being opened by door jam spreaders. The “Throw” should be at least an inch long.
• Get a Double-Cylinder lock. The lock will be on both sides and therefore always require the key. This is beneficial if you have glass in your door that could be broken for access to the inside of the lock. If you just have a solid door with no glass, a Single-Cylinder lock should be fine.
• Look for locks with Anti-Drilling features.
• Choose a lock with a beveled casing. This will help prevent attacks by hammers and other force tools. The hammer will glance off of the lock and not land a direct blow.
• Get a Strike Plate with long screws that anchor into your house and not just the door jamb. So look for 3 to 4 inch screws that will reach the wall stud.
• Make sure the door you are going to put the deadbolt on is solid wood. It probably is. If you use a hollow core door or something else weaker, your door can easily be kicked in. It will just splinter away from the deadbolt.

The first goal is to determine how many cameras you will need. To do this you will need to survey the area you want to install the cameras in. Decide on if you are going to have indoor or outdoor cameras. If they are going to be outdoors, you will need to buy some weather proof enclosures to protect the cameras. This is of course to protect your investment from the elements and vandals. Another part of the indoor/outdoor question is the location of the cameras. Do you plan on getting wireless cameras, or having time hard wired to the building?

And as for the fancier options, you have to choose if you want black & white or color video. There is also the question of audio? Do you want to have sound as well as the video? It is a more costly option, but may be worth it.

Next on the list is the recording device. You can go with the VCR or the new DVR methods. With VCRs you’ll have to keep buying tapes, as long as they keep making them. And tapes wear our and break over time. With the DVR everything will record to a hard drive. The DVR will give you better picture quality and more options for recording and reviewing the video.

Then to view the camera angles, you will need a monitor. TVs are not ideal for being constantly on. In that respect computer monitors are a better option. It is also a good idea to try and match the resolution of your cameras with the resolution of the monitor. If you plan to view multiple cameras at once, you should buy a bigger monitor. Or if you have the means you can go with a multiple monitor set up.

Assess your needs and budget for it accordingly. If you need to slowly build up your security system, make sure you start with one that is upgradeable and can accept add-ons.