Securing Sliding Glass Doors

[williaty]

The house in which I am cursed to live has, among all its other faults, two sliding glass doors on the back face. I'm trying to figure out how to secure them. In the near term, I am not so worried about having the glass broken as there's actually two layers of doors. Breaking through 2 sets of doors is going to be enough of a crash to get me up with a gun in my hand. In the long term if things go south, I've got plywood to screw directly to the vinyl frames in order to make it pointless to break the glass. I'm also not worried about preventing them from being slid open as a bit of 1" dowel covers that. What I'm worried about is the doors being lifted out of their tracks using a cat's paw from the outside. This has been the entry vector in several burglaries in our immediate area over the last month. Basically, they stick the cat's paw under the door, push down, and quietly lift the door out of the track and set it aside and then walk in silently.

Does anyone know of a method for securing a sliding glass door against this kind of attack?

[Terminus est]

Put some screws in the track above slider to prevent lift out.

other tips
A broomstick or something that would fit in the slider thingie will make sure thedoors cant move horizontally .
Some cheap foil laminate might help if anyone tries to break it and at least will make sure there is less to cleanup when they do.

Best i can come up with these things are a security nightmare unless you invest in the superexpensive ones.
You can also give your local PD a call most have a burglary squad who can provide you with lots of good info.

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Sandbag bunker?

Sliding glass doors aren't meant to be secure. Even if you screw plywood into them, it's not too difficult to breach either the plywood or the frame. Short of two layers of plywood with a gap (1/4" should work) between them, and then screwing the door into the frame and floor with some big ass bolts, it ain't gonna be secure. Your best bet might be figuring out how to close off the area that the door leads in to.

[Tater Raider]

What Doc said, sliding glass doors are evil.

[raptor]

Replace them. The cost is not that great.The major door and window folks have modules that simply screw in to the frame of the sliding door. If your replace them with energy efficient glass and make it windstorm proof you can get federal and in some states state tax credits that will offset the cost.

Slinding glass doors are IMO an obomination. There are very difficult to reinforce unless you go with steel or lexan shutters. This typically costs about the same as replacement after the tax credits.

[squinty]

http://www.nxstagesecurity.com/SlidingS ... Doors.html


Plenty of products like this - I don't have any personal experience with them.
Pull down hurricane shutters for when you sleep or go out, maybe?

[williaty]

Can't replace them, I don't own them. Gotta do the best with what I have.

[Towanda]

This page has some pretty good instructions for putting jimmy plates or wide-headed screws in the upper track to prevent a sliding door from being lifted out.

[williaty]

This page has some pretty good instructions for putting jimmy plates or wide-headed screws in the upper track to prevent a sliding door from being lifted out.

Thank you, Towanda, that page is great!

[squinty]

Can't replace them, I don't own them. Gotta do the best with what I have.

The stuff I posted goes on over existing doors, but the landlord might still have a problem IDK. You could ask. But probably what Towanda posted is more practical for you, and maybe for me too so I'm off to read what she linked. Good luck!

[Florida_Tony]

I use these things. The pack came with 3 of them, and they are surprisingly strong. There is no way someone is getting through the sliding door without breaking the glass.

[ghost792]

There are several companies that make sercurity films for glass. They are supposed to make it more difficult to break the glass. Apparently you can get them at home stores.

[williaty]

There are several companies that make sercurity films for glass. They are supposed to make it more difficult to break the glass. Apparently you can get them at home stores.

The difficulty with that stuff is that the film must be bonded to the frame. The film itself just keeps the broken glass from coming apart. Without the bonding, the glass just falls out of the frame as one big floppy mess. Once the film is bonded to the frame, the glass will break but the film fill force the glass remnants to stay in place. The problem with bonding it to the frame is that there are requirements for frame depth to achieve sufficient bond and the standard vinyl frames on glass doors and windows these days are too thin to achieve the proper bond.

[Lycosa]

My wife and I lived in an apartment like that and we were worried about the same thing as the area started to rise in crime. What we did was put some shelves outside with a lot of plants on them... kind of made a container garden and it looked really nice so no problems from management. It wouldn't stop someone from breaking in, but would require a lot of extra work to get in the house. From inside, we simply used wooden dowels, as you did, to keep the door from being opened and put a vibration alarm on the glass with a pull-type alarm that would go off if someone were to try and pull the door out. The garden was a bonus and something we'd planned on anyhow, but the inside solutions were cheap and worked well. Also, we put a big ol' alarm security sticker on the door to warn would-be burglars that my arpartment wouldn't be an easy target.

[squinty]

I use these things. The pack came with 3 of them, and they are surprisingly strong. There is no way someone is getting through the sliding door without breaking the glass.

Will they stop someone from popping the door out of the track?

[Doctorr Fabulous]

I use these things. The pack came with 3 of them, and they are surprisingly strong. There is no way someone is getting through the sliding door without breaking the glass.

Will they stop someone from popping the door out of the track?

I just keep thinking back to a demo house I did in Virginia. The sliding glass dorr was the fastest, safest breach to do, because all it took was a hoolie/Halligan tool (think "big fuckoff prybar" with with a glass breaker and other pointy bits) rammed at the latch, and the door levered open without any trouble. I was gonna break the glass, but honestly a solid strike to the frame will either dislodge it, or break whatever "lock" you have on there without spraying shards of glass everywhere.

[ghost792]

There are several companies that make sercurity films for glass. They are supposed to make it more difficult to break the glass. Apparently you can get them at home stores.

The difficulty with that stuff is that the film must be bonded to the frame. The film itself just keeps the broken glass from coming apart. Without the bonding, the glass just falls out of the frame as one big floppy mess. Once the film is bonded to the frame, the glass will break but the film fill force the glass remnants to stay in place. The problem with bonding it to the frame is that there are requirements for frame depth to achieve sufficient bond and the standard vinyl frames on glass doors and windows these days are too thin to achieve the proper bond.

Good to know.

[Power Fail]

I was watching a little bit of Best Defense once, and Janich talked about how easy it is to pop the doors out of the track. He suggested basically putting the "up, over, down" type door locks across the tops to prevent this. If you freeze this video at the 9 second mark, you can see a picture of what he was talking about.

[williaty]

I was watching a little bit of Best Defense once, and Janich talked about how easy it is to pop the doors out of the track. He suggested basically putting the "up, over, down" type door locks across the tops to prevent this. If you freeze this video at the 9 second mark, you can see a picture of what he was talking about.

That's a generic link to the show's page. Can you tell me what specific video you're talking about?

[Power Fail]

I was watching a little bit of Best Defense once, and Janich talked about how easy it is to pop the doors out of the track. He suggested basically putting the "up, over, down" type door locks across the tops to prevent this. If you freeze this video at the 9 second mark, you can see a picture of what he was talking about.

That's a generic link to the show's page. Can you tell me what specific video you're talking about?

Sorry, yeah, I guess that is just their homepage. Nonetheless, it's the 9 second mark of the video that plays on said homepage when I click the link above.