Critical door hardware for home security

Secure your home’s entrance doors against kick-ins

Take it from us, the Nashville remodeling professionals of Broderick Builders: It’s best to review your home security before a break-in or other negative event forces you to take a closer look.

Consider your home security along with other remodeling plans

It makes a lot of sense to go ahead and improve the security of your home in conjunction with any other remodeling you’re doing. We strongly recommend taking the small amount of time and effort necessary to conduct an objective home security review as part of the overall remodel planning whenever you are considering any kind of remodeling (or even if you aren’t). There’s simply no more convenient time to make some simple home security improvements than right along with any other kind of home remodeling you may be considering or doing. You already know there will be some household disruption during the actual home remodeling process, so there’s no better time to go ahead with some other home improvements and renovations. Get it all done at once! You and your family will be safer because of it.

How Secure is Your Home? Home Security and Safety Questionnaire – SafeWise

Parts of a typical entrance door

In my experience, the various parts of doors can be tricky to learn because there’s not always a lot of consistency in the terminology used from one group of carpenters and remodelers to the next group of woodworkers. I’ll do my best to define and explain these terms. We’ll eventually include some very helpful diagrams as well.

Fortunately, it will not be me – the lowly web content writer – installing and building doors as part of your home remodeling project; rather, you’ll have some of the most experienced carpenters, artisans, and woodworkers in Nashville breathing life into your dream home.

NOTE: As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to call Broderick Builders at 615.385.3210 or use our contact form. We are constantly working to add fresh content to this website and improve the existing content, so you can expect some of the more confusing or challenging articles (like this one, perhaps) to be explained better, revised, and corrected over time. Thanks for your patience!

Frame

The frame is the outer structure that supports the door. Your front door’s frame is most often made of wood to make it easier (and cheaper) to attach to the house. A door frame includes the sill, the jamb, and the head.

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Jamb

The door jamb – the vertical part, at least – comes in handy for measuring the heights of our growing children. If you are standing in the middle of an open doorway – in other words, on the sill – then the right and left edges of the door frame facing you is called the jamb, or more specifically, the vertical jamb. The part above your head is called the head or horizontal jamb, and the bottom – the part you are standing on – is the sill. The side/vertical jambs may also be referred to as vertical hinge jamb and vertical latch jamb.

Now for the parts of what laypersons call a “door” (the swinging part that opens and closes)…

Panel

Panels are the sections of the exterior door held in place by the stiles and rails. On a wood exterior door, they are part of the construction. On steel, fiberglass, vinyl exterior doors they are embossed on the surface of the skin.

Lock

The quality of locks installed on your home’s entrance doors can vary tremendously. Unfortunately, the typical lock installed on the front door of the average U.S. home is not even a Grade 1 deadbolt lock – which is one reason we are taking plenty of time explaining this here on our website and urging you to closely examine the security features of your home as part of any other remodeling you’d like to do. Home security is more important than ever.

Hinge

The door is attached to the vertical jamb (aka hinge, side jamb) with hinges – usually three.

Trim

The trim that surrounds a door frame is sometimes called casing; it is installed before the baseboard and chair rail because they end right at the casing’s edge. Casing is also the easiest type of molding to install because the joinery is simple, making it a perfect first project.

Escutcheon plate

The escutcheon plate is used to cover parts that don’t need to be seen. There are escutcheon plates in electrical work, plumbing, automobiles, and other applications.

Transom

The transom is the glazed unit or fixed glass panel installed above & spanning the top of an exterior door entryway.

Foam core (steel and fiberglass doors)

An insulating agent, often a type of foam, is typically injected into the core of steel and fiberglass exterior doors.

Stile

Stiles are the continuous vertical supports in the exterior door. In a wood exterior door, they are exposed. In steel and fiberglass doors, the actual stiles are covered by the outer skin and thus are not visible. The outside of the entrance doors is often embossed to give it the appearance of having stiles.

Rail

Rails are the continuous horizontal supports in the exterior door. Their number can vary according to the design of the exterior door itself.

Sill

The sill is the bottom portion of the frame against which the bottom of the exterior door rests when it is closed. If it is metal on the surface for durability, it is important that it incorporates a thermal break to reduce conductive heat loss. When you are standing in a doorway, your feet are on the sill.

Inset

Glass inset is a glazed unit installed in the structure of the exterior door itself. There can be one or more in an exterior door and they replace panels from a design perspective.

Sidelite

Sidelites are the side units (often containing windows or other glazing) that can be incorporated on either one side or both sides of the exterior door.

PHDTN home security products include:

DoorGuard

DoorGuard strengthens the weakest parts of your door – the frame, jamb, locks, and hinges – and is completely hidden within the trim. DoorGuard has been proven and its high quality is guaranteed; all parts are constructed from commercial-grade materials.

Don’t get fooled: 10 questions to ask before choosing a home security system- Cammy

We suggest that the DoorGuard be installed and used in combination with a proven grade-one deadbolt lock like the Schlage B60 grade-one deadbolt. We also recommend the use of Edward Wayne’s patented L-shaped door edge protector. Physical Home Defense research & development indicates that this combination provides the strongest support for door frames.

What Do ANSI Grade Levels Mean? Home security hardware – deadbolt locks – ANSI Blog

DoorGuard has been proven; quality guaranteed
DoorGuard has been tested to the hurricane impact standard of 350 foot-pounds to endure the strongest of attempts to enter. It also exceeds Hurricane Impact Standards and has been tested with Underwriter Laboratory’s ASTM F476-84 test method. DoorGuard was designed by engineers alongside law enforcement and in cooperation with home builders and the Overland Park, Kansas, Crime Prevention Unit. Our solution has been adopted by numerous municipalities nationwide.

Intercept protection system

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

Securing your front door

Entry doors: This is where Physical Home Security of Tennessee products and services truly shine in boosting the security of your home. These products seriously strengthen your doors, helping reduce the risk of your door being kicked in.

Go for a solid-core door. The most secure doors feature a solid core, so they’re more difficult to kick in or break.

Improve home security as part of your next Nashville remodel

Did you know that most residential entrance doors can be kicked in without too much effort? If your home still has standard front and back doors, let us help you improve your security.

Whether you’re putting in a new mudroom, building a master suite, remodeling the attic, or renovating the entire house, there’s no better time to improve the security of your home. As a long-dedicated, deeply experienced Nashville remodeling contractor, we know the local building codes and the home security products and features that really work.

Now is the time! Let Broderick Builders help you protect your loved ones and your property by making affordable home security improvements along with any other remodeling. It all starts with a free assessment of your home security. [ Contact form ]

Securing your entrance doors (front, back, side)

Solid wood is good, but steel is better.
Install a Grade 1 deadbolt lock on each entrance door.
Reinforce or replace existing door locks.
Install door security hardware to prevent door kick-ins.
Install a wide-angle peephole in each entrance door.
Don’t neglect the back door & any other entrance doors; they need to be just as secure as the front door.
Install motion-activated lighting at strategic locations to capture all activity encroaching upon on your property from all sides. This is one of the best things you can do to discourage strangers from walking onto your property, and it will also help you feel much safer when you are outside after dark. Highly recommended!
Install a light just outside each entrance door that can be turned on from the inside (in addition to installing motion-activated lighting, not in place of it). This way, no one can lurk unseen right outside your doors.

The basics of door hardware for improved home security

One might assume that ANSI grade-one locks and the other seemingly-minor changes we are recommending are effectively meaningless and would make no practical difference. Such an assumption would be very incorrect! For instance, how could a better lock prevent my door from being kicked in? Depending on how much you know about door hardware, the answer may not be clear.

Isn’t the main problem the overall weakness of the door, and not the lock itself? In fact, both are of extreme importance if you are to secure your doors against being kicked in.

Resources: Critical door hardware for home security

Door locks and home security

What is an escutcheon plate?

Home security evaluation checklist

Parts of an exterior door

Door frame & panel – Wikipedia

Critical door hardware for home security

Secure your home’s entrance doors against kick-ins

Consider your home security along with other remodeling plans