How to choose a steel door for your home

Recommendation points

• Let’s consider each of the tasks separately
• Protection against unauthorized entry
• Heat and sound insulation
• Steel entrance door appearance
• Steel door – an outpost in the defense of your home

They say that in New Zealand, residents do not lock their doors – they have practically no theft, and the principle of the inviolability of personal property has been firmly in the memory of every New Zealander since childhood. What can I say – they were lucky! And since our situation is somewhat different, we have to independently resolve the issue of personal safety and the safety of property. The market offers many home defenses and comes first with a good steel door. The whole question is how to choose a steel door suitable for all conditions?

The key to the right choice is that the door matches the goals that the homeowner pursues, intending to purchase this means of protecting their home.

Steel doors – construction (steel doors are made in accordance with bank GOST R 51113-97). The design of steel doors has its own class of burglary resistance, indicated in the product passport:

• 1st class – the door design excludes the possibility of opening when a burglar uses brute physical force and the simplest set of tools (a sledgehammer);
• 2nd class – such a door cannot be broken using any hand tool (crowbar, hammer, chisel, etc.), but it can be opened with a specialized power tool;
• 3rd class – an experienced specialist will not open this door using only a hand tool or an electric tool, provided that the power of the power tool is no more than 500W;
• 4th class – bulletproof door (from any small arms), burglar-proof using a thermal tool and a power tool with a power of more than 500W.

An example of the structure of a steel entrance door of the 1st class: frame – a steel pipe of a rectangular profile, equipped with stiffeners (at least two horizontal, one vertical), the frame must be fastened in six chutes along the perimeter of the door (minimum condition); sheathing – two cold-rolled steel sheets, 2.5 mm thick, the outer sheet must overlap with the frame (at least 4 mm); at least two locks – their design must not match, one of the locks must be safe.

Steel entrance doors must perform several tasks: to protect the home from unauthorized entry, to isolate the room from the external environment (heat and sound insulation), to have aesthetic appeal.

Let’s consider each of the tasks separately

Protection against unauthorized entry

There are two ways to enter a home without the knowledge of the owners: the use of brute physical force and the so-called “intellectual” hacking. The steel door prevents the first method of penetration due to its construction (strength and reliability), in other words, it cannot be knocked out with a direct blow. However, hacking based on brute physical force is ineffective, unless the premises are located in a deserted area – such actions are accompanied by significant noise, which will attract the attention of neighbors.

The second method is the most dangerous for property owners – “intellectual” hacking, in which the burglar acts quickly and practically silently. A qualified burglar will spend no more than 15 minutes opening an average lock. Not a single door equipped with the best locks can completely exclude the possibility of penetration – a steel door can only make the burglar’s task as difficult as possible, thereby frightening off most of the burglars. A professional burglar will go to break a good steel door, if only a really big jackpot awaits him behind it and he is sure of it.

Heat and sound insulation

An entrance door made of steel has greater heat and sound transmission than a door made of wood. The metal door has slots and there are many of them. Of course, the manufacturer is trying to reduce the number of slots, but completely eliminating them will increase the amount of work, and therefore increase the cost of the product..

Improving the insulating properties of a steel door can be achieved by filling its leaf with insulating materials (mineral wool, polystyrene, etc.), installing various seals in the gaps between the door leaf and the frame, decorating the door leaf with thick panels that effectively damp sound. The best option is a double door: the outer one is made of steel, the inner one is made of wood or mdf.

Steel entrance door appearance

In the era of socialism, there were two types of front door decoration – covering with artificial leather and painting. The first method of decoration was used by the owners of the apartment themselves, because after arriving at a new place of residence, they came across an unpretentious front door, painted in a completely awful color. Steel doors were decorated in three ways – they were painted, upholstered with clapboard or stretched with artificial leather.

Today, a steel entrance door is decorated mainly with volumetric panels (made of MDF, plastic or hardboard), with an external coating of the panels with plastic or veneer (natural). Thanks to this finish, the owner can choose a color scheme and pattern that is in harmony with the overall decor of the room..

Steel door – an outpost in the defense of your home

Whoever the burglar is, he will first of all check the possibility of access through the door, and only then he will look for other ways of entering. If you have reasons to fear intrusion, you need to take combined protection: 1) install a steel door of a sufficient class at the entrance to the house; 2) apply additional security measures.

1. The following measures will help to significantly increase the security of the entrance door: increasing the number of stiffeners in the door leaf; the use of cold-rolled steel sheets with a thickness of at least 4-5 mm for the construction of the door leaf; the use of a special insert in the canvas made of a material that cannot be cut with an abrasive tool; pouring the steel door box with concrete, thereby forming a single monolith with the wall, hanging the door leaf on hidden hinges (containing either a support bearing or a hardened metal support ball). An important point: try to install a door with outward opening – it will be impossible to knock out such a door.
2. Additional security measures will be special locks on the front door, installation of an alarm with output to the police station or private security service. You can apply such a method that allows you to upset the burglar’s plans: install a faulty alarm sensor (also any) on the upper wing of the door (anywhere), run two wires from it in a bright braid to the switchboard on the staircase, without connecting them anywhere. An experienced burglar will immediately notice such an “alarm” and, with a high probability, will abandon the attempt to open the door – he perfectly understands that if you cut the wire or destroy the sensor, the alarm will go off (be it real).

Before deciding to purchase or order a steel door for your home, decide what tasks this door will perform, what will be the main and what will be secondary. For example, if the highest priority is safety, then it is necessary to increase its protective properties to the detriment of external aesthetics..

And the last remark – a high-quality steel door, contrary to the advertising slogans of some manufacturers, is simply impossible to make in one day. This is due to some technological features in the creation of a steel door on an individual project..

Treat the choice of a steel entrance door manufacturer with the utmost care and pickiness!