uPVC Door Security – 5 Quick Tips to Secure your uPVC Door
If you have uPVC doors, you have made a wise investment. Seen as the modern alternative to more outdated door types, uPVC doors are a great investment for any homeowner in the UK. If you want to reduce the risk of being a break-in victim, then modern door types such as uPVC doors play a huge role in doing just that.
However, like any other door type, uPVC doors are not invincible. Savvy criminals can find their way through their lock mechanisms, while less adept criminals can force their way in regardless. To help make sure you can make your uPVC doors more durable, we have put together a five-stage list of things to do. Apply the following tips to your uPVC doors, and you can vastly reduce the risk of being a victim of an avoidable crime.
Tips For Making uPVC Doors More Durable
While uPVC doors are the modern standard in UK door selections, they are not infallible. However, with the five following add-ons, you should find it much easier to stop your uPVC doors from being quite so easily broken into:
Invest In Better Door Handles
The first place that we recommend anyone with uPVC doors to start is with their door handles. What lets many doors down is the fact they have outdated, easy-to-break door handles. Criminals with the right tools easily break through door handles that lack the expected strength and durability. By buying better door handles for your uPVC doors, you can strengthen security quickly and easily.
High-security handles protect the cylinders within the doors themselves. If your door has Euro cylinders, criminals with the correct toolkit can snap the lock and gain access to your home without making much of a noise at all. High-security door handles are usually around double the thickness of a traditional door handle, making them much more challenging to break through.
Generally, quality uPVC door handles will cost around £50. However, while this might sound like a lot, the cost is worth it. Even when you factor in the price of your door handles and the cost of hiring a professional locksmith to fit them, you could have everything installed for around £150-200. By working with an expert, you can ensure that your new door handles are TS007 2-Star or Police Approved door handles, which are suitable for the modern market.
Get Anti-Snap Locks
Arguably, the most impactful solution for reducing risk to uPVC doors is to buy into anti-snap technology. Anti-snap locks, otherwise known as Snap Secure locks, stop criminals from using a simple technique known as lock snapping. Lock snapping is one of the easiest ways to break into a home and can be extremely quiet and quick. With anti-snap locks, you remove this from the list of tricks that a criminal could use to get into your home.
Anti-snap locks are incredibly durable and offer a much higher standard of security than your average Euro cylinder lock type. They have been tested rigorously against lock snapping and the related lock-bumping trick. They also cannot be picked, which is a nice thing to know; even the most skilled lock picker cannot pick through an anti-snap lock mechanism.
The other good news is that anti-snap locks can be fitted on both uPVC doors and older door types, such as composite/timber doors. So long as your new anti-snap locks are SS312 Diamond or TS007 3-Star rated, they should be suitable for full anti-snap protection. Again, hiring a locksmith means having someone who can verify the quality of your new anti-snap lock protection.
Generally, a locksmith’s cost to supply and fit anti-snap locks will be around £130. While you can buy anti-snap locks for around £50/60, we recommend using a professional service for fitting instead of going it alone.
Pick A Dog Bolt
Dog bolts are an increasingly popular part of the home security setup for uPVC door owners. They help ensure that the door is almost impossible to force open. When the door is closed, these extra bolts ensure that someone cannot get the door off its hinges. Extra security like this helps ensure that doors cannot be smashed open or brute-forced—at least, not without causing a huge commotion and likely being caught in the act of doing so!
Hinge bolts can be fitted not only to uPVC doors but to any doors that open outward. With a cost of around £12-15 for some dog bolts, this is one of the cheapest ways you can improve home security. We do recommend that you have your bolts fitted by an expert, though, as they need to be fitted to a very specific part of the door to ensure they work as intended and deliver what was expected.
Install Door Chains
Door chains are a great, cost-effective investment that provides a bit of extra peace of mind for those who feel vulnerable. Easily fitted to any uPVC doors, door chains provide another form of protection that stops someone from barging the door open. Door chains should be Secured by Design accredited, as this gives you peace of mind that the door chain is Police-Approved and resistant to wear-and-tear as well as physical impact.
While a door chain does protect your uPVC doors, it also allows the individual inside to get a sneak peek of who is at the door. Open the door slightly, see if you are comfortable with who is at the door, and then slide open the chain to let them in. Otherwise, the door can be closed without anyone having a chance to open the door from the other side. With a cost of around £25, door chains make a very affordable extra to help protect people in the house. Once the lock is on, good luck getting in!
Include Sash Jammers
Last but by no means least, we also recommend anyone with uPVC doors to look at sash jammers. A locksmith can fit these for you, and they act as a second form of lock authentication. Cheap and effective, sash jammers will prevent a door from opening at all if the lock becomes broken. So, if someone tries to tamper with your uPVC door locks, the sash jammer kicks in and stops them from being able to do so. As far as extra security goes, this is about as good as you get for the price!
We really like sash jammers as a final extra add-on. Not only do they help to protect the door from being forced open, but they deter criminals from trying again. Getting a sash jammed door with a broken lock to open is such a noisy activity that almost any criminal will be put off even trying. The best news, of course, is that sash jammers cost around £12-15. You also get more expensive models, which can cost around £20+, but they can also be locked from the outside, which is a nice feature.
We recommend that you contact a locksmith for fitting, too, whether you are buying sash jammers or any other recommended add-on above. DIY fitting often means risking your warranty or insurance and always having the potential that your handiwork will not be up to standard. When it comes to home security and your uPVC doors, always rely on the experts!
Final Considerations
If you have uPVC doors, then you have made a very wise investment indeed. However, whatever type of extra security you choose, we highly recommend you look at the lock’s standard. The best locks are going to be SS312 Diamond-approved cylinder locks or TS007 3-star Kitemark doors. These standards provide you with extra peace of mind about the stability of your doors.
Of course, if you are uncertain about which type of door add-on to include or what the best option for your budget is, call a local locksmith. Work with an expert trained by the team at MPL Locksmith Training, and you are certain to get the support you need for a thorough security audit. An expert can review your door(s) and give you bespoke recommendations on which of the above extras would be most beneficial in your situation. Remember that you can fit multiple add-ons to your doors, so you might wish to invest in more than one of the above recommended extras for uPVC doors.
There is no right or wrong answer, as every property has its conditions and requirements. You might find that you only need something like a door chain or a sash jammer. Or, you might feel as if you need a full rebuild of your uPVC doors lock systems. Depending on how new the doors are, they might need to have the locks replaced and upgraded in full.
Now that you have a better understanding of what matters when choosing door types, where will you start? With the right support and insight from an expert, making an informed decision becomes much easier. If you want to make the most of your uPVC doors, consider the following and bring in an expert to help you select and install your new door fittings.
