Improving The Safety Of Your Home

Safety and Glass Sliding Doors

While a glass sliding door can be a nice touch to add aesthetic value to your home, you must also be careful that these doors don't reduce the safety of your home. There are a few issues with sliding glass doors that can make them more vulnerable to break ins than other types of lockable doors. Here are some things to review when installing a glass sliding door. 

Where Is the Door?

The first thing you'll want to look at is the location of the door. If your sliding glass door is in an area that's hard to access from the outside of your home, then you may not need to worry as much. For instance, sliding glass doors that are multiple stories up or concealed behind a heavy duty fence are less of a target for intruders. But if your sliding glass door is in the back entryway of your house, for instance, it will be important for you to consider the door as a potential security threat and go through the steps below. 

What Kind of Glass Does it Have?

The next thing to consider is the type of glass within the sliding glass door. Weak glass is much easier to break than a metal security door, but there are types of door glass that can be fairly difficult to penetrate. If your door doesn't already have security glass, such as a double pane window glass or wire-embedded glass, you might want to consider upgrading. You could either look at these types of doors specifically, or visit a glass repair center to see if they can replace the panels in your sliding glass door with a stronger glass type. 

Install Additional Locks

Another thing that you can do to increase security is to install additional locks within the sliding door. Consult a residential locksmith like Venus & Mars Locksmith to see what options you have. One popular method for increasing sliding glass door security is installing a lock at the bottom of the door. Burglars won't be expecting this additional layer of security, and, because these locks often sit on the inside of the door, they will be hard for a burglar to access. Another option is to use a metal security bar that provides extra resistance when in place. The security bar can easily be removed from the inside to make the door easy to slide open. It may take a little bit more money to make your sliding glass door more foolproof, but it's worth it in terms of the added safety and peace of mind.


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