There’s no place like home. And should push come to shove, you need to keep your home safe and strong. One surprisingly easy way to do that is with door armor.
When I say door armor, you might be thinking of metal plates strapped to the front of the door or special doors that are extra hard to bust. But that isn’t the case. Door armor is nothing more than intelligently placed metal slabs that dramatically increase the strength of a standard door. And the best part? It only takes about 20 minutes and a screwdriver.
How It Works
Think about this: If someone breaks down a door from the outside, in order to break into a house or apartment, does the door itself break? No. The framing it’s placed on breaks. Busting through an outside door is nearly impossible to do without extreme force. Door armor reinforces the framing and connecting focal points. Take a look at the below image example.
This is the Door Armor MAX Plus Combo Set by Armor Concepts, one of the most popular door armor kits. To install it, the user screws the metal plates into the designated locations. The Jamb Shield runs the entire height of the door, so when you try to kick the door down, all of that pressure is applies to the entire frame and not just where the bolt it. The Pry Shield, as the name implies, makes it significantly harder to bend the frame out to open the door. The door and hinge shields work the same as the Jamb shield, dispersing the pressure of attack over a wider area. Now someone trying to break in is having to fight against nearly the entire frame, instead of just the weak points.
Door armor is relatively affordable too. The above model is one of Armor Concept’s more expensive one since it comes with all parts. And it only costs $99. Since they don’t modify the door any, they can be installed in apartments or other homes run by a landlord.
The Flaw
These items have a number of worthwhile points to them, there is one common complaint I always see: the door gets hard to open. It makes sense, after all. You can’t go shoving reinforced metal between a door and the frame without it getting a bit snug. Some folks report their children not being able to open the door. Homeowners can probably plane down the door to make room, but renters can’t. So keep this in mind if you have kids or a particularly weak wife.