How to Secure Your Sliding Glass Door to Prevent a Break In
Keeping your Sliding Glass Door secure is easy, inexpensive and doesn't require a lot of work. Follow this guide to help prevent break-ins and protect yourself from being an easy target by criminals. Sliding Glass doors allow you to enjoy the outdoors while staying indoors by giving you ample amounts of natural light along with providing a large door to enter and exit your home. The large glass door that allows you to enjoy the great outdoors also allows thieves to see what is in your home (making you a potential target) and is inherently insecure providing thieves with an easier entry point into your home. Below are two ways that you can make your sliding glass door more secure.
Cover The Glass:
-Install shatter resistant tinted or reflective protective film on the doors. The film provides you with two levels of security. If someone tries to break the glass it helps keep the glass from shattering into the home and the tinting helps prevent people from seeing what is in your home. It also continues to allow natural light into your home
-Install Blinds or Curtains on the doors. Blinds or curtains are an inexpensive way to prevent unwanted eyes from peering into your home. When you are away at work, sleeping or on vacation keeping the blinds on your sliding glass door closed will help keep the prying eyes of thieves from seeing what you own.
2. Install a Door Stop Lock:
The way that sliding glass doors slide in a track to open and close makes them inherently insecure and easier to break into. It provides thieves with a variety of ways to bypass the lock and open the door. However there are several ways to make your sliding glass door more secure.
-Use a wooden dowel or rod: A wooden rod placed in the bottom track can prevent the door from being opened. Make sure the rod is long enough to fit snugly into the track and then place the rod into the bottom of the track so that the door will not slide open. If the rod is loose and moves around it is possible to kick the door from the outside, causing the rod to jump around and pop out of the track.
-Use a Master Lock Security Bar: The Master Lock security bar works the same way that a wooden rod works except that it is adjustable, allowing you to make it fit snugly in the door without the need to cut a wooden rod.
-Install a Charlie Bar on the door: A Charlie Bar is installed in the vertical track of the door frame and drops down into a small shelf on the back of the sliding door. Unlike the wooden rod or the Master Lock security bar the Charlie Bar is hidden in the door frame when not in use so there is no need to store it in a corner or a closet when the door is open.
-Install a Sliding Door Pin Lock: There are a variety of Sliding door pin locks that all work on the same principle, they allow a pin to lock into place to prevent the door from sliding open.
Sliding glass doors provide us access to our backyards and the outdoors and when they are properly secured they can also keep our family and home safe. Give us a call to schedule a time to discuss the options to secure your sliding glass door and your home.