Exterior Door Jambs

YES, Install a Door that swings out, It's sure hard to kick in ; ) PS And a GOOD Dead Bolt
Y/D

Which way is best?

An exterior door that swings outward means that the hinges can be pulled from the outside and the door taken out, despite any safety-chains or dead-bolts. Bathroom doors and closets have hinges like this, just in case. Pull opposing screws from both sides of a hinge and drive in a ten-penny nail into the one side, then crop off the head of the nail with side-cutters. Curve it with vise-grips to fit into the opposite screw-hole, and your door will be VERY hard to bust through when closed.

If you don't mind the look, I installed on two of my inward-opening exterior steel doors a crossbar of 2 x 2 square steel tubing that drops into a bracket mounted on the wall studs to each side of the door frame. I used two bars, one about 18 inches from the top of the door and the other about the same distance up from the floor. These prevent someone from pushing in the corners of the steel doors and crawling in.

I also recommend putting the heavy nails into the hinges, reversed, to prevent anyone pushing the doors inward, as well. I've been broken into before and they pushed in the corners of steel doors at my shop. Never again.

Also you want a good security alarm, monitored, with a cell phone backup so WHEN they cut your phone wires an alarm can still be sent. Be sure they WILL cut the phone lines. Probably the cable too.

Many Kinds of Hinges for out-swinging Doors are available and used in commercial applications where Security is important.


Some have the Hinge Pins Welded in, some Peened in, some, have a Set Screw inside the Hinge Knuckle which screws against a flat spot on the Pin, etc.


Far as in-swinging Doors, assuming the Door itself is strong, the 'Stop' which the Door closes against, can be made to be heavier in section, and, attached to the Jamb well by one means or another - if Wooden Jambs and Stop, then glue and small Nails, glue and screws, etc. and proper prep of the surfaces which are to be glued.


Old time Commercial Steel perimeter Doors with Steel Jambs and integral Steel 'Stop' are a very simple, and very strong/secure way to go, and, these are often available used anywhwere older commercial Buildings are being demo'd or re-modeled by merely talking with the personel/crew doing the demolition or remodel work...and or offering a Six Pack of their favorite Beer in exchange for a Door and Jamb combo.


Adding heavy Steel protectors to prevent accessing Lock Strike is also good to do for regular perimeter Doors.


Any commercial Hardware supply would carry those.

Ask a local steel shop to fabricate some steel frames for you. That way you can attach the frames with some pretty hefty lags and have them weld in nuts where you will bolt up the doors. The door frame is the part that's going to break first in most cases since it is the weakest link. Definitely do not install your doors so they open outward for the same reason given in post #3. Make sure you buy a decent lock set and look into a blind deadbolt for when you're at home. If you're going to get an alarm, be sure you get it with a cellular backup or primary, as was mentioned the previous post, most alarms rely on a phone line to get a signal out and burglars know this. I Was working in south Memphis and people were breaking into homes while people were there during the middle of the day and cutting phone lines left and right. It got to the point where local contractors would install pipe over the lines coming into the house at the junction box.

Any door that swings out will be very hard to open with drifted snow or any other object blocking it on the outside when you are inside. To can sister the jamb with metal, 1/4" thick steel adds alot of strength to a door jamb, just make sure to drill the holes for the dead bolt before you install the door, it is harder to do nicley after the door is installed.

In a similar vein to what Stan Rose wrote:
I'm not sure how well this would work on the doors you have, but it's pretty effective on heavier inward-opening doors that are hard to bend or break. It's not real expensive either. You'll want a good doorknob and deadbolt lock that are resistant to key bumping too, and that's the biggest expense involved.
It's a bit of work but you can get a piece of 1/4" or 1/2" steel about 2" wide and mount it under the inside of the door trim on an inward opening door. I wouldn't use tempered steel for this part unless you want to wear out a bunch of drill bits. You'll want it at least long enough to cover the area where the strike plates are, and a little longer than that is probably better. You can often find suitable scrap steel for little or no cost if you hunt around some. Use some heavy duty hardened steel screws, at least 3" long, with deep threads, or you can use hardened steel carriage bolts that go all the way through the door frame with the nuts on the inside, to screw into the door frame. Drill a few holes in the steel. If using carriage bolts drill through the door frame too of course. Screw/bolt the steel to the frame, and put the interior jamb trim over the steel. You can cut out some space on the underside of the trim to make it sit flush and the steel won't be obvious at all, and if you use carriage bolts you can drill some holes in the trim for the bolt ends and the nuts so they don't stick out from the trim, or drill suitable sized depressions on the underside of the trim so the bolt ends and nuts are covered by the trim. If they go all the way through the trim you can put some small discs cut to fit over the nuts so they don't show inside. You should use the heaviest duty hinges that are practical and good long tempered steel screws on them too. Also use good tempered screws on the strike plates in the jamb where the doorknob bolt mechanism and deadbolt go into it. A lot of house doors come with lightweight hardware that isn't very strong.

I use something like this.... works great for me.

http://www.misdefenseproducts.com/Door-Devil-trade-Security-Door-Jambs-p-1-c-1110.html

THAT'S the one I have!

89 bucks, eh... Thanks for the tip.

I looked at that online and it sure looks like it's worth $89. Have you considered stacking some aluminum cans with a few pieces of gravel in each one in front of the door so if anyone opens it they make a bunch of racket? Won't help if no one's home but it's very noisy and should alert you right away that you've got a B&E. Cheaper than a house alarm system too.

If a guy is having a house custom built, he could spec that each exterior door opening will be rough framed with some extra 2x4s or 2x6s. At minimum double up the king studs, and put some horizontal blocking in the first stud bay. Using construction adhesive as well as nails would help too.

The exterior sheating on either side of these ext. doors could also be 1/2" exterior grade plywood rather than 1/2" OSB. Again, use const. adhesive and nails.

When it comes to it though, most frame house walls are nothing more than vinyl siding, 1/2" OSB, insulation, 1/2 drywall. Can you say cordless sawzall?

Those kits that reinforce the jamb are a great idea. However even cheaper is what I did did for my door. I unscrewed those tiny 3/4" screws from the stikeplates for the locking doorknob and deadbolt. I went to the hardware store and bought some 3" screws. Installed those. The screws reach into the stonger wood of the wall and not just into the doorjamb. As effective as those doorjamb reinforcements? Probably not but you still not getting in with just a kick or two.

^this is what i have done, as well. try to make sure the striker plate(s) and hinges have solid shiming behind them.

Surely that could be used as well as cutting the phone line.

Click to expand...

Possibly, but the likelihood of the BG having a jammer capable or putting out the power to stop the signal is far less likely than one finding a pair of cutters.

I think what millertyme and medalguy were suggesting was a redundant system that used both land lines and cellular.

Front door futility

Sadly, my front door has a nice big window right beside it. Breaking the window and just stepping in would be far easier than kicking in the front door. I have so many big windows, all easily accessed, that fortifying the front door just doesnt pay. I am trying to figure out just how to secure the windows best - I think my best approach is going to be an alarm system with a nice large siren in the attic, that also has a dial-out.

Would appreciate any suggestions.

I was just going to say get longer screws for the hinge plates into the door jamb and into the door itself also for the deadbolt and the strike plate, I also went out and bought one of these with extra long screws. I honestly can't remember what size the screws were but I know I had to put my 1/2" 18volt dewalt on the highest torque setting to get them into the door jamb!

@ David58 "
Front door futility
Sadly, my front door has a nice big window right beside it. Breaking the window and just stepping in would be far easier than kicking in the front door. I have so many big windows, all easily accessed, that fortifying the front door just doesnt pay. I am trying to figure out just how to secure the windows best - I think my best approach is going to be an alarm system with a nice large siren in the attic, that also has a dial-out.

Would appreciate any suggestions."

3M makes a film you can apply to the windows kind of like a layer of tint that makes them almost impossible to kick in, the glass will shatter but it won't allow anything to go through it. Check out this link it has more info and some videos, my favorite is the last video of an actual break in attempt : http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...ucts/Commercial/Safety-Security_Window_Films/