Patios are nice additions to a home as they give you a spacious and comfortable resting, working, relaxing, or even eating space.
Having the right patio doors adds to the aesthetics of your home while allowing natural light and air inside the house, creating a large room feel and freshness.
Typically, doors can determine how tight or loose your home security is. After spending a long day doing what you love in the patio space, you may find yourself wondering in the evening….
Should Your Patio Door Remain Unlocked At Night?
Even if you live in a secure neighborhood, it is advisable always to close your patio doors at night. While the doors can remain open throughout the day, closing them at night will help you protect your belongings and property on the patio.
Well, there are many insinuations that patio doors are not secure and can easily invite buglers to your home. Of course, this is partly true and partly false. Buglers are no one’s friends and can visit your home anytime to try and steal your property. If you have a weak patio door, it will be very easy for them to get to your house, but if the door is strong enough, burglars may even fear approaching your patio for fear of being caught while trying to break into the patio.
If you still want to take chances with not closing your patio door at night, this article will cover the best ways to enhance your patio door security and the importance of closing the patio door at night.
Four Reasons Why Your Patio Doors Should Remain Locked At Night
Other doors that allow entry to your house, like the front, kitchen, bedroom, and back doors, are closed at night, and patio doors should also be closed at night.
Always close the patio door as you head to the living room or bedroom in the evening. Here are some of the benefits of closing patio doors at night.
1. Keep Away Burglars
Burglars rarely visit homes where they fear being easily caught while trying to sneak in.
However, if they are sure that there is an easy entry to the house, like open patio doors, they will easily approach your home.
Basically, a burglar is not your friend, and you shouldn’t make your home friendly to him.
Closing patio doors will keep burglars, thieves, and intruders away from your home.
2. Keeps Wild Animals Away
Wild animals like rabid bats, raccoons, and small reptiles like snakes and other nocturnal animals move from their hideouts to search for something to eat.
Leaving patio doors open at night gives such animals leeway to your property.
Some of these animals are dangerous and can attack you later when sited on the patio, while some, like rodents, can destroy your chairs and other equipment on the patio.
3. Improved Sleep Patterns
Sleeping with the assurance that all your doors are closed and that no one will break your doors is a great feeling.
You will get minimal to no disturbance in the night, and if you do, you will be able to take stern actions against those trying to disturb your peace.
4. Feng Shui
This is a renowned Chinese philosophy that deals with the flow of positive and negative energies.
According to this philosophy, closing external doors is a way to help keep positive energy within the house while avoiding the negative energy from getting inside the house at night.
It is therefore important to close patio doors at night, especially if you are a believer in feng shui.
How To Enhance Home Security Through Your Patio Doors
While patio doors add aesthetics to your house, they can also pose a high-security issue. Here are a few tips to enhance your patio door security
1. Install High Quality Sliding Door Frames
It is very important to use good quality material to make frames for your patio doors to help enhance security.
All frames are not made of the same material; some are tougher than others.
Typically, high-quality frames are tougher, hard to break and last for long, giving you superior levels of home security.
2. Fit In Anti-lift Devices
These are keyless devices that act as a locking system for the doors.
Using them on patio doors is among the best ways to enhance patio door security.
The keyless locks simply function by preventing doors from being lifted from their tracks.
3. Have A Three-Point Door Locking System
Having a three-point door locking system is key if you want a secure door.
With a three-point locking system, your security is almost guaranteed, unlike if it is just a one-point lock.
Experts advise that you have one lock point at the top side of the door, another point in the middle, and the last point at the lower part of the door.
This system will take intruders a lot of time to break.
4. Install High-Quality Glass Doors
The quality of your patio door glass can make it easy or hard for anyone to break into your house at night.
The single glazed glass will break very easily, giving intruders easy access to your property.
Double glazed doors provide significant security benefits since they are tough, making them difficult to break through.
In most cases, the double glazed doors have toughened glass material which takes more time and effort to be broken.
5. Fit Secure Door Hinges
Door hinges can determine how easily your door can be broken.
If your patio doors open outward, you are at high risk because the hinges are exposed.
Fit in secure hinges whose hinge pins cannot get out easily.
Most security hinges are hard to break or remove and can give you peace knowing how hard it can be for an intruder to damage the door hinges and break into your space.
6. Hang Patio Door Curtains
Basically, if burglars can see something precious to steal within a distance from your home, they will plan and eventually break in.
On the contrary, they may not even think of breaking in if they cannot see anything valuable.
7. Always Lock Your Doors
Leaving your patio doors open at night gives buglers an easy way just to move in and steal your property.
You will probably hear them break in and call for help or scare them away if you lock the door.
Remember, home insurers will not pay for burglary cases with no door breakage or forced entry.
8. Add Extra Security Locks To Your Patio Doors
Whether you close your patio doors every night, their security is greatly determined by their locks.
If the locks are very simple, they will be opened easily.
Adding more complex and upgraded door locks will help you make the patio door more secure.
Conclusion
Home security is, in most cases, a homeowner’s responsibility.
If you have a patio on your property, it is your sole responsibility to make sure it is safe by enhancing the security of your patio doors.
However, securing the door with the above tips may not be enough; it is of great security significance to always lock your patio door at night.
Related
Sources
https://www.southcoastwindows.co.uk/blog/how-to-secure-patio-doors-advice-from-the-experts/
https://www.expressdoorsdirect.co.uk/patio-doors/which-patio-doors-are-most-secure
