Home Security Starts at Your Front Door

By Mario McKellop

When it comes to ensuring your family safety, the conversation has to begin at your home's main entry point. A quality exterior door should not only be able to endure intense weather conditions, but it should also serve as a visually pleasing defense against intruders. Here's a look at the different types of entry doors that are available, and a few tips on what to look for when selecting an ideal front door.

Wood

Beautifully crafted and properly stained doors made out of cherry, pine, maple and fir are renowned for their ability to stand up to whatever the elements have to throw at them. When it comes to home security, wood doors offer varying degrees of protection, depending on how they're made. Solid wood doors, which are constructed from several different pieces of wood, are dependable and reasonably priced. However, they lack the strength and heft of solid core doors, which are made from one solid slab of wood. Given the nature of their construction, dense and heavy solid core doors provide a superior degree of defense against forced entry. However, wooden doors will start to wrap overtime.

Steel

Steel doors are by far the most secure type of entry doors. Not only do they offer the greatest degree of protection against intruders, but they also have the cracking and warping issues that affect wood and fiberglass doors. By themselves, steel is also comparatively less expensive than fiberglass and solid core doors. The biggest drawback with steel doors is that they dent quite easily. Paint chipping is also a common issue with steel doors. And if a metal door's dents, scratches and chipping aren't dealt with, structurally integrity damaging rust may set it.

Fiberglass

In recent years, homeowners have increasingly chosen fiberglass as the material of choice for their front doors. Price-wise, fiberglass is more expensive than steel, but costs about the same as a quality, solid core wooden door.  They are also more durable, energy efficient and weather resistant than traditional wood doors. And since they don't warp, dent or rust, they are the most low maintenance front door option. In effect, they offer most of the cosmetic and security benefits of wood and steel doors without their biggest drawbacks.

Additional Front Door Security Measures

There are some additional steps that homeowners can take in order to further secure their entryways. It's also worth investing in a high-grade deadbolt lock, and the same goes for a door jamb reinforcement kit. These enhancements will make it much harder for intruders to break into your home by strengthening the strike plate, edges and hinges of your front door. And as part of a larger security system, you can have your entryway fitted with door sensors. These perimeter protection devices can be configured to emit a chime when you're in your home and an alarm when you're out.

The security experts Guardian Alarm can provide you with additional home protection tips and resources.