Security tests by
Consumer Reports Magazine in the 1990s found that many residential doors
fail or
delaminate when
force
is applied to them. Solid wood doors withstood more force than the very
common metal skinned wood-edged doors used in newer construction. A
broad range door manufacturer, Premdor (now Masonite) once stated in one
of its 1990s brochures entitled "Premdor Entry Systems" page 6 that
"The results of tests were overwhelming, Steel edged doors outperform
wood-edged doors by a ratio of 7 to 1. When you consider the practically
two-thirds of all illegal entries were made through doors... One hit of
100 lb [
lbf]
strike force broke the wood-edged stile and opened the door. To
actually open the steel-edged door required 7 strikes of 100 lb pressure
[force]." Most door manufactures offer a number of different types of
doors with varying levels of strength.
Consumer Reports Magazine also reported in its test results
that door frames often split with little force applied and lower quality
deadbolts simply failed when force was applied to the door.
The Chula Vista Residential Burglary Reduction Project which studied
over 1,000 incidents found that "methods found to have relatively low
effectiveness included: sliding glass door braces, such as wooden
dowels, as opposed to sliding door channel or pin locks; deadbolts
installed in the front door only; and outdoor lights on dusk-to-
dawn
timers".
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