The focal point of your home and the very first thing that visitors will notice, like it or not, entrance doors say what your about and genuinely make the ever important first impression but they shouldn't just look "nice" they have to be practical too, choose carefully in relation to glass and locks.
Any new entrance door should be very secure and special in relation to your home and personal preferences. It should at the very least add style to your life....... not just your home, we believe a DirectDoors.com entrance door will exceed those expectations, however, our entrance doors aren't just stylish, these entrance doors meet high security standards and help save energy.
The choice of doors for you to peruse covers PVC entrance doors, Composite entrance doors, these options are genearlly only available with everything fitted in relation to locks etc, with our Wooden entrance doors we can supply these as door sets whereby the door arrives with a frame in kit form or with the frame, locks and all other fittings already fitted and pre-assembled ready for you to fit to your home or project.
The choices for a "door set kit" covers doors and frames with side aperture options to the left, the right or both sides and then we supply double entrance doors, it all sound a bit overwhelming but let me assure you the DirectDoors.com site is set to allow for easy browsing in a category by category style layout with each door type clearly defined.
The security of any entrance door should be considered at the very beginning, the most important question to ask yourself relates to what locks to fit, here are some examples of our advice:
- Traditional locks such as RCN (Yale type lock) for ease of access combined with a security rated Eurospec mortice dead lock to BS3621 are the very minimum you should fit, Eurospec dead locks do nothing until you turn the key to throw the secure bolt and that is the lock that most insurance companies expect to find on any entrance door, the RCN (Yale type) lock is more about being able to simply close the door after entering the house and locking out anyone else from pushing the door open, simple but effective.
- A security rated Eurospec mortice sash lock to BS3621, this lock is very similar to a mortice dead lock but incorporates a latch which allows you to close the door behind you on to the latch which holds the door closed but doesn't lock until you turn the key to throw the security bolt, mainly used on rear entrance doors and enough in itself to keep the door secure.
- A multi point lock system, there are numerous varaiations for this type of lock, they vary depending on the type of doors such as pvc, composite, wooden..............some multi point locks have three bolts (top - middle - bottom) and others have 5, 7 or 9 bolts with some of the bolts locking not just to the side of the door but to the frame lintol above the door and the cill below the door, phew!!!!, then there are further variations incorporating "hook bolts" which do what they say, they hook behind the lock keepers, the keepers are the metal plates that are fitted to the frame.
Conclusion & advice for entrance door locks;
- Front doors, if I was fitting a front entrance door to my own home I would fit a RCN (Yale) lock and dead lock to BS3621.
- Rear doors, if it was a rear entrance door it would be a security sash lock to at least BS3621 but I'd also fit two security bolts, these bolts are only visible from the inside and have to be turned with a small "splined" key to lock them, very basic but very good.
- Any entrance door, If I wanted to spend more money, I would fit a good multi point lock, 3, 5, 7 or 9 point, it's your pocket and your choice.
- Make sure that the mortice locks are to at least BS3621, 5 lever and with a "box" keeper, it all adds up to a better more secure entrance door for your home.
- Make sure any multi point security lock complies with your insurance companies requirements and has "Secured by Design" status.