Home Security Upgrades in Toronto

Picking a lock is rare. Most forced entries are quick and loud: a kick or a shoulder at the lock side of the door. The deadbolt holds, but the wood around the strike plate splits, because the strike is held in with short screws that only reach the thin door trim.

Other common ways in are prying the door open with a tool, lifting a sliding door off its track, and simply walking through a door that wasn't locked. A good upgrade deals with these, not with movie-style lock picking.

These are the upgrades that make the biggest difference for the money:

A better lock helps too, but put it behind a strong frame. See lock installation for what grade of deadbolt to choose.

Sliding doors have a weak latch that's easy to force, and many older ones can be lifted off the track from outside. Fix both problems:

• Bar in the track. A charley bar or a cut piece of wood dowel in the bottom track stops the door from sliding, even if the latch fails.
• Secondary lock. A foot lock or a loop lock at the bottom or top of the door adds a second point that holds.
• Anti-lift screws. Screws set into the top track, leaving just enough room for the door to slide, stop it from being lifted out.
• New latch. If the handle no longer catches, the latch is worn out. We replace it with a matching part.

This applies to ground-floor condos and townhouses too, where a patio door opens onto a terrace or a shared courtyard.

Often, yes. Many Toronto bungalows and semis have a side door and a separate basement entrance, usually down a set of stairs at the back or side of the house. They're out of sight from the street, they often have older doors and basic locks, and they're easy to forget.

For these doors we usually recommend a solid deadbolt, a reinforced strike with long screws, and hinge screws that reach the framing. If the basement is a rental unit with its own entrance, the landlord and tenant should agree on any changes first.

Garage doors that lead into the house deserve the same treatment as the front door. A garage side door is often the weakest door on the whole property.

1. If someone might still be inside, leave and call 911.
2. Report it to Toronto Police. For a break-in that's over, use the non-emergency line at 416-808-2222 or report online.
3. Take photos of the damaged door, lock and frame before anything is fixed. Your insurer will want them.
4. Call us to secure the door. We'll replace a damaged lock, rekey if keys were taken, and fit a heavy-duty strike so the door closes and locks tonight.

If the frame or door is badly split, we'll tell you honestly. We can usually make it lockable, but a full door or frame replacement is carpentry work. Dispatch runs 24/7, and an emergency call usually gets a technician on-site in about 15-30 minutes. Late at night, see after-hours locksmith.

Yes. If you're looking for a home vulnerability assessment in North York or anywhere else in Toronto, we can walk around your doors with you: front, side, back, patio, basement and the garage entry. We check the locks, strikes, screws, hinges and sliding door tracks, then tell you what we'd fix first.

To be clear about what we don't do: we don't install alarm systems or security cameras. Our focus is doors, frames and locks. If you also want an alarm or cameras, an alarm company is the right call, and the door work we do still matters either way. For more ideas, see our security solutions page.