How would you "board-up" a door/window?

[TCW]

It's a random thought I had today...

In a social-breakdown situation where you had to stay-put and wanted to secure some windows or glass doors...what's the best way to secure them?

Plywood screwed into the frame?

Attatch it from the outside or the inside? Attaching from the outside would be harder to 'kick' in, but would give looters access to the screws, and vice versa.

I guess you'd have to make 'peep' holes in the wood to see out?

Thoughts?

 

[Lupinus]

Well you could do it from the outside and make sure the screws are well recessed and striped. Make it a bitch for oyu to undo but will make it so they cant simply unscrew it. Plus it will make it harder as yo usaid to kick it. Course in a quick SHTF situation standing outside with a drill hanging plywood my not be practicle and you will have to do it from the inside. I'd think with a good solid frame and enough screw's youd be fine. Use the screws with the biggist groove possible so it get's the best grab. If you are using a really thick screw don't be afriad to drill a piolet hole so it doesn't split.

If you really want to be a prick, put nails and/or screws through the plywood so it will have a punch sticking out. Make neat little rows with 2x4 or scraps of plywood behind them that are screwed into the end's, specialy with nail's. This way they can't jsut get a hammer and punch them through. Course I suppose they could just use the hammer to bend them over. But it will still get in their way and if they dont have a hammer will make it a real pain to kick or break it in. Plus if you get enough in there its going to take awhile to make it so they dont impale themselve's.

I'd also recomend one room that has supplie's stored in it and the fewist entry point's to give extra fortification to. And have a fully charged drill with screws right next to the door. This way worst case they get into the house you have a room to run to and are still well supplied. And with the drill and screws right there you can get the door secured in a hurry and in time with a tacticle withdrawl. If it's in the middle of the house though I suppose they could always burn it down. Course if you ticked them off enough to burn the place down, you probably ticked them off enough to kill you anyway if they get their hands on you.

 

[TCW]

Good suggestions. Love the nail idea...LOL!

 

[Lupinus]

Know if I went to break down a door and there was a bunch of nails (even just enough where theres jsut one every 6 or 8 inch's, enough theres a good chance of spearing myself) I;d think twice.

One, I dont feel like stabbing myself with a nail.

And two, whoever did that is a nutjob and it aint worth messing with him.

 

[odysseus]

Since this thread is more about SHTF than natural disaster, I would add that you have one good or hopefully other ways of escaping - and fast. If you were in a stand off with bad people trying to get in or just get to you after you resisted them, they could just set the place on fire and wait you out, 'ol west style. You don't want them in, but not at the expensive of not letting you out either.

Aside from the good idea of nails, broken glass is not nice to be around either.

 

[Kharn]

Not many people have a Torx head driver when they go looting.

Kharn

 

[junyo]

Airless nailer, set the impact to sink the nail heads below the board's surface. You're not getting that out w/o ripping off the board or some serious time with a cat's paw, and as has been suggested driving a few more back through the board would seriously discourage trying to just kick them in. Airless nailer and nails because you'd be able to set it up a lot more quickly than screws; atwo taps to each end of the board, a few taps arounfd the perimeter of a piece of ply. Then do the same thing inside, so that getting through the exterior layer was the easy part of their day.

Ply would seem to be preferable, since it would preclude people being able to see/stab/shoot through the gaps like they would with boards, but ply obscures your vision and offensive capabilities just as much as it hinders your opponents. You could mitigate that by cutting small ports or having alternate positions available. Ply also gives you the opportunity to do something extra special like filling the window frame gap with ball bearings, broken glass, small caltrops, or barbed wire chunks, so that when the outer layer is compromised opponents are given an extra problem that has to be dealt with before they can continue attacking the inner layer.

 

[Hardware]

I learned the proper way to secure a door or window from a guy that buys tax seized properties in low income neighborhoods to renovate and flip. Screwing or nailing through the plywood into the frame or sheathing will just get crowbarred off.

You will need a sheet of thick plywood cut to size, reinforce from the outside with 2 2x4s for a window, 3 2x4s for a door. Drill 2 holes through each 2x4 on opposite sides of the door or window. Put long carriage bolts through the holes. The carriage bolts have to be long enough to extend past the inner door or window frame. Inside put a section of 2x4 or 4x4 if you have a REALLY bad neighborhood, with holes drilled through them to accept the carriage bolts. Put a washer and nut on the carriage bolt and tighten. You will have 4 carriage bolts on each window and six on each door reinforced with 2x4s.

This has kept my friend's newly purchased houses from turning into crack houses and shooting galleries for twenty years now. And that's with nobody living there to defend it from people trying to pry the plywood off. You'll sacrifice your windows if you don't have double hung sashes, but if the S has truly HTF then it's a small price to pay.

 

[Sinsaba]

fill the space between with cement!!

 

[Lupinus]

As to filling the gap if you fill both side's. You can jsut use dirt...though something that will obstruct such as the ball bearings or glass is a good idea to further hamper.

But something like dirt ontop of that holds a practicle purpose as well.

In the middle age's to reinforce a palisade wall (just a simple single, maybe double or staggerd layering of wooden pole's often sharpened ontop) they developed a better way for more perminant fortigication. They set an inner and outer palisade wall and filled the middle with earth. Why? Absorption and disipation of energy. By filling dirt inbetween it made a battering ram almost usless because so much of the energy was absorbed. Agianst battering ram's some of these wall's were even more effective of similerly sized stone wall's early on.

And a nail gun that will recess the nail's is a good idea. But screws I would still feal more secure with since they are easier to rip out.

The carrige bolt's would be the most secure but also the msot time consuming. Time to fortify great. SHTF fortify just not the time.

 

[rmgill]

What about investing in good old fashioned Oak Shutters. Want firing ports, you can get some with diamond shaped 'decorative' holes in each panel center. It just takes some decent wood working and the right arrangement of hinges and brackets.

 

[pete f]

We routinely board up our beach house for the winter. pieces of 3/4 PTS or better plywood. This means 7 plys thick. the more plys the stronger the piece will be. we cut them to fit inside the brick mold, which is the standard molding that runs around the outside of most windows, then pieces of wood (usually maple only cuz we have it, but not soft wood,) are place perpendicular to the sheets and screwed in with square drive screws. if the window is large then a couple of vertical stringers are added to prevent flexing. we add these on the outside and screwed in from the inside. We have been doing this for longer than i have been alive and it has worked for winter storms and late season hurricanes.

My parents have a house in Florida, there we have gotten 3/16 inch checker plate aluminum cut to size. A significant expenditure up front. but fast and easy to hang. durable and no effected by leaving under the deck for the winter. Two years ago one of the hurricanes rolled thru and altho many of the neighboring houses had sustained water damage and broken windows my parents had not. There we had used thread inserts epoxied into the frames. Now boarding up the house takes about an hour. the big one is to plan ahead. have the stuff cut up and fitted and a plan of action. as far as a way to repel boarders, plant big rose bushes in front of the house. hoodlums hate them.

 

[Lupinus]

A dumb question about the carrige bolt's.

If you make the house secure by doing all the door's and window's

How do you do the last window/door? Or get out after it? And how do you get back in to undo the bolt's?

Or do you not do this to one of them in which case whats the point since they can get in the weak spot?

 

[carebear]

I always figured if I lived in hurricane country or had a remote cabin up here I'd do much like Pete suggests and have the 3/4" Marine ply cut to size and drilled/grommeted to mount on all thread or bolts permanently mounted into the frames. Slap that stuff on there and, low security, wing nut it on or use some kind of locks throught the bolt to keep a regular nut on for a bit more.

You can get decorative thread covers for the bolts when not in use to protect the threads and make them less obvious.

When I see on the news people nailing wood into their siding for what is often described as the second or third time I have to shake my head at how stupid most people are.

 

[griz]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if they broke into boarded up houses in New Orleans to look for holdouts? I'm talking about after the storm. It would bother me if I left my house boarded up, obviously empty, and came back home to find it broken into by a search and rescue team.

 

[nfl1990]

If I had enough time (3-4hours) I'd use some big lag bolts and mount a steel frame around the window then weld on a piece of plate steel (at least 1/2") which will stop most handgun rounds, and some rifle rounds, and unless you had an angle grinder with you it'd be darn near impossible to get off.

 

[Lupinus]

yeah but all this welding and carrige bolt stuff. How the heck do you get in?

And with the carrige bolt's how the heck do you do the last window/door and get out after? And assuming that you could do that how do you get back in?

 

[nfl1990]

Well you see back to your theroy of most BGs trying the weakest point, say the front door it means that I have only one place that will need more guarding than just checking on them also some of my doors (raised deck with no easy acess from the ground) would not need to be boarded, also since those are sliders I could do it in a way so that the doors would still work but would still have steel plate over them. Also I would probaly not board up most second story windows as anybody who trys to use a ladder would be able to be easaily shot while trying to gain access. That and one of the first things I'd do when TSHTF is to put a hatch from my attic to my roof which will give a LOS of a min of 100yds, (not great I know, but I have close tree lines).

 

[junyo]

yeah but all this welding and carrige bolt stuff. How the heck do you get in?

And with the carrige bolt's how the heck do you do the last window/door and get out after? And assuming that you could do that how do you get back in?

I'm assuming you could use blind nuts on the last opening, or use really huge blind rivets.

I disagree with the carriage bolt idea. Any defense/lock/fastener can be defeated given enough time/talent/tools. True, the carriage bolts do make it almost impossible to pry the cover off the window. But the carriage bolts have a couple of glaring weaknesses. As has already been mentioned, install time may be an issue. But the other problem is, say you've got the cover secured by 4 carriage bolts. Me and an angle grinder, or me, a fire extinguisher, and a cold chisel can blow through the nut end of 4 carriage bolts in a couple of minutes. And since the carriage bolts don't actually bite the ply (most carriage bolts have fine machine threads, too fine to effectively grip wood) once the nut or the bolt head are compromised nothing's holding your covers togather. And since you're not going into the window jamb the carriage bolts represent a single point of failure; i.e. once the bolts are out both your outside and inside layers are compromised. With screws or nails you've got a lot more fasteners to deal with, two independent layers, and even if you remove the heads, you've got fastener friction/mechanics holding the ply.

nfl1990, correct me if I'm wrong, but forget handgun rounds, 1/2" plate steel will stop light artillery won't it? Would you need more than 1/8"? And the weight of a decent window sized piece of 1/2" would be ridiculous. But, it were down to that, steel plate is probably the best idea so far.

 

[nfl1990]

That's true I got a little excited on the thickness, but there is no reson to not put more than 4 bolts (a. they're cheap, and b. they would go in quite quickly, it is the welding that would eat up time.

Also if you set it up with U shaped tubing placed so that one side of the U lays against the side of the house, it would be extremly difficult for anyone to take off as the other side of the U protects the head of the bolt.

 

[wingnutx]

+1 carriage bolts

You can put them right through your brick wall if you don't think your door frame is good enough.

Having the nut inside allows quick egress, too.

 

[Hardware]

A dumb question about the carrige bolt's.

If you make the house secure by doing all the door's and window's

How do you do the last window/door? Or get out after it? And how do you get back in to undo the bolt's?

Or do you not do this to one of them in which case whats the point since they can get in the weak spot?

Come on, you know there's no such thing as a stupid question. In my friend's case he sets up a ladder to the highest window in the house before securing the front door, which he does last. Then upstairs, out the window and takes the ladder with him. He's a roofer, so he has an awfully long ladder, might be 40 feet. I've seen him go out an attic window on a 3 story house. Although he doesn't even usually board up anything but the basement and first floor level.

If you are securing the doors and windows prior to bugging in, then you don't need a ladder. A rope will do in a pinch. If you've got to get out, then the S has HTF at your place.

 

[bruss01]

How-to video

There's a video on how to board up the doors and windows of a traditional wood frame house on an emergency basis using only items commonly found in the average home, which can be accomplished by an average but industrious male, without assistance, in under 90 minutes. Also contains segments on interpreting media reports during a crisis, and top-speed refueling at rural gas pumps while carrying a lit torch.

It's called "Night of the Living Dead".

Check it out some time. It's not 100% zombie-proof, but hey, what do you expect from a half-assed job done with insufficient materiel in a panic situation by one guy with no help?

 

[Lupinus]

lol bruss

 

[Hobie]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if they broke into boarded up houses in New Orleans to look for holdouts? I'm talking about after the storm. It would bother me if I left my house boarded up, obviously empty, and came back home to find it broken into by a search and rescue team.

Showed 'em on TV.