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To: Kartographer

My house was broken into a year ago. They just kicked in the front door. Dead bolt, lock, and chain didn’t do a thing. The weakest point in a door is the frame. Popped it right out.


17 posted on 06/01/2013 5:24:09 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: driftdiver
“They just kicked in the front door.”

The FBI says this is the main way a bad guy gets in a house. I have a heavy duty BuddyBar that sits under the inside door knob to reinforce that area so kicks won't tear out the door frame. It would take a while kicking to defeat the bar. There are cheap bars to put there and those do not work. The bar has to be heavy duty and that's about $60 or more. I also have an alarm that fits under the door and if the door vibrates that alarm is set off.

A new metal frame in the kick area can be installed to reinforce that area but that takes woodworking/metal skills I don't have.

23 posted on 06/01/2013 8:06:50 AM PDT by Marcella (Prepping can save your life today. I am a Christian, not a Muslim.)
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To: driftdiver
A gang of 'yutes' was doing this in my neighborhood during the day while people were at work a few years ago. I ordered a metal barred security door, but because of the size it had to be custom made. So in the mean while I brought and installed one of these.

The strike plate is the curved metal piece that sits in the door jamb. The latch hits this and closes. The problem is that the strike is usually installed with ¾” screws into the jamb. When the door gets kicked open, the jamb usually splits from the force of the impact, and the door swings open.

A fast fix is to replace these short screws with longer deck screws so that they sink all the way into the house framing. The door can still be kicked in, mind you, but it will take more than one kick.

I installed what they call an armored strike plate. It has a larger surface area to spread out more of the impact, but more importantly you are installing it into the solid door frame of the house itself, which is usually constructed of double or triple layers of 2X4's. You will most likely need to actually make a hole for it into the the house's framing so it will set flush. Once installed flush the plate ends up sunk into the the much studier house framing about 3/8". I chose not to use the screws that came with mine, but instead got the heaviest and the longest screws that I could fine that would fit through the plate's pre-drill holes.

I got mine at the Home Depot.
24 posted on 06/01/2013 8:52:55 AM PDT by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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