Thieves took my DVR!

[samplenhold]

I have never seen a door from the house to the garage that swung into the garage, present house included.

 

[JNDATHP]

Speaking of Florida, our home is CBS construction, impact windows and doors, and all exterior and man garage doors open outward. We feel very safe and it’s darn near impossible to break into our home.

 

[looktall]

it’s darn near impossible to break into our home

That's because you don't break into houses for a living.
People who do it professionally so to speak see things differently to you.

 

[JNDATHP]

That's because you don't break into houses for a living.
People who do it professionally so to speak see things differently to you.

I am a retired LEO so am very familiar with professional break-in artists.

Our home in Florida is CBS construction, meaning the house perimeter is solid concrete and concrete block. Impact windows will break but not shatter when hit with multiple 9mm rounds and the doors are steel.

Our home in Nevada, which is stucco, yes I agree with you. Easier to use a Sawzall to cut an opening next to the door rather than to try to break down the door.

 

[TechBill]

All the doors I've seen in Florida open outward into the garage. I think I'll install some of those security hinge screws on mine.

Keep in mind a burglar could grab the circular saw off the workbench then easily cut through the wood door. It might be quicker than a pry bar and Jack.

From what I heard that in hurricane states, the door need to swing outward into the garage because it will withstand the wind force against the door better and open garage make a good wind tunnel.

In states that are not hurricane states, the door need to swing inward for two reason, fire code and in some states will not allow door to swing out over the steps or drop down floor. It will need a platform slightly wider than the door before it can step down. Adding platform with steps would just take up lot of spaces in garage but I have seen home with platform and steps in garage because the room attached to garage is a small washing room and there no spaces for the door to swing inward.

 

[David L]

Never heard of such a rule but I have only lived in a few states. Outswing door is very unusual in my experience. Others have posted some options for hinges that are more secure for pins on the outside. But even for inswing doors I have heard of using a jack to pry the jamb apart enough to clear the deadbolt so a long throw is best. I would guess the hinge with raised tab would be fairly easy to overcome with a pry bar to spring the jamb a little. The long screw heads look better in that regard. If they want in bad enough they will get in but you want to make that hard to do.

Sounds like your driver knew you were going to be out for a while and that's the link to the break in. That could explain them looking in so many out of the way places - if they knew they had lots of time and little risk then why not look everywhere.

I heard All Doors must now Swing both ways
View attachment Gender_Neutral_Safety_Meeting.mp4

 

[David L]

I have never seen a door from the house to the garage that swung into the garage, present house included.

The Door would hit our car if it did that here...

 

[Jim I.]

I have never seen a door from the house to the garage that swung into the garage, present house included.

The last house I owned in Houston was like that. The house was built in 1992 and had an attached garage that the door swung out into the garage.
One day my wife locked herself out of the house when I wasn't home. A neighbor came over and popped the hinge pins off the door to get her back in!
I always hated that design door and was planning on replacing it, but then the house was flooded by hurricane Harvey. So that took care of that. We moved! lol

 

[JimLS]

I heard All Doors must now Swing both ways

Are we still talking about doors? Mine only go one way and that's not going to change.

 

[David L]

Are we still talking about doors? Mine only go one way and that's not going to change.

You are out of "Woke" code

 

[David L]

The last house I owned in Houston was like that. The house was built in 1992 and had an attached garage that the door swung out into the garage.
One day my wife locked herself out of the house when I wasn't home. A neighbor came over and popped the hinge pins off the door to get her back in!
I always hated that design door and was planning on replacing it, but then the house was flooded by hurricane Harvey. So that took care of that. We moved! lol

Our previous house had sliding glass doors, one in our bedroom and the other in our livingroom. The one in our livingroom was mounted backwards, no joke, if the door was not locked you could lift up on the door from the outside and remove the whole door, In other words the door that slides was on the outside....LOL
This was in Houston too. House was built in 80's...

 

[JBjorn]

I got recently broken into while not at home. Power was cut and alarm was bypassed as my alarm backup battery had expired!

They took my NVR so makes the cameras not that useful.

I did not have cloud backup.

Could I trouble the brain trust for a backup solution to the cloud assuming that I have a UPS running long enough to upload to the cloud?

I run a Dahua NVR with 6 cameras.

Many thanks!

Out of curiosity, what do you hope to achieve if this were to happen again? It sounds like they can cut the power off no matter what. If backup batteries are in place, the alarm will sound at some point? And, then how long would it take for them to disable that? Is it sufficient to scare them away or could they proceed till they disable that as well? And, even if you get some level of backup either by mirroring a NVR or cloud, is that sufficient if they take everything? People wear masks all the time now.

What level of response time would you have if you got sufficient notification that something was happening? Email/push notification? How often would you check it if you are say abroad somewhere? Is there someone else whom could receive those?

So, to me, the question is how do I prevent them from being capable of rummaging through the entire place? And, that may require a separate solution if you are going to be away for a couple weeks. There are some camera systems that can operate independently of your houses power. And, some can also operate independently of your network (3/4G). It might be worthwhile to have one or two of those in key places when away for long periods such that you can either temporarily enable to get a notification (no mater what) and/or a subscription that allows for independent review of the security of your home. Or, you have to ensure full power redundancy and appropriate notifications such that once things start a happening someone is ready to get to cops out there.

 

[CCTVCam]

I wonder if people are aware there are different door grades at least in the EU?

Most doors fitted are SR grade 1 or at best 2. Yet there are high security ratings to grade 5 with doors that can resist jemmys, sledgehammers, stihl saws (!), police hydraulic spreaders etc for up to 20 mins.

Of course theives may just break a window....

One company making higher security doors that have a few pics of the mechanisms of some on their web sites (unsure what grades this company does) : External security doors UK manufactured & police approved

 

[Sybertiger]

Crap, I just looked at the hinges on my out swinging door and see that the hinge holes on the door side don't line up with the hinge holes on the frame side. This means using the security hinge screws isn't the simple solution I wanted. I guess that means changing the hinges out. Poot.

 

[David L]

I wonder if people are aware there are different door grades at least in the EU?

Most doors fitted are SR grade 1 or at best 2. Yet there are high security ratings to grade 5 with doors that can resist jemmys, sledgehammers, stihl saws (!), police hydraulic spreaders etc for up to 20 mins.

Of course theives may just break a window....

One company making higher security doors that have a few pics of the mechanisms of some on their web sites (unsure what grades this company does) : External security doors UK manufactured & police approved

Those are nice. I installed these on Front and Back Doors. Won't stop a Pro but should stop or detour the Average thief. Glass Break Sensors help too...



Quick story, when we moved in we were told of thieves coming into our neighborhoods acting as a lawn crew. They would start mowing the front yard while the others went to the back and broke in your house, they would come out with black trash bags full of your stuff and load them on their trailer. Maybe the lawn mower helped silent the house alarm, don't know. So you would get a free lawn mowing but at the expense of your stuff being stolen...

 

[ptzman]

I have mounted deadbolt locks on both sides of the door that swings out into the garage. Lock both locks when you are away. Also, you can drive clevis pins into the hinge pins to keep them from being driven out.

 

[samplenhold]

Crap, I just looked at the hinges on my out swinging door and see that the hinge holes on the door side don't line up with the hinge holes on the frame side. This means using the security hinge screws isn't the simple solution I wanted. I guess that means changing the hinges out. Poot.

View attachment 156290

Just drill two holes opposite each other that lineup better than what I put on the pic:

 

[CCTVCam]

I can't beleive in the US that most people still seem to have traditional wooden doors with 2 ordinary hinges and a handle lock.

Over here, even a basic SR1 door has multipoint locking:

This would be an SR1 / 2 door lock - main handle lock and then shoot bolts that lock the side of the door at top and bottom as well, 5 locking points total:

https://cdn.aws.toolstation.com/images/141020-UK/800/29599.jpg

The weak point in EU doors is the Euro locks whcih can be snapped but luckily there are high security anti snap / pick replacements that just slide in with the removal of 1 screw:

Home

www.ultion-lock.co.uk

 

[looktall]

I can't beleive in the US that most people still seem to have traditional wooden doors with 2 ordinary hinges and a handle lock.

That's pretty much the standard in Australia too.
Solid wooden door with a standard key lock.
Generally uprated to a dead bolt of some description.

But we're big on using security screen doors in front of them.

 

[fenderman]

Out of curiosity, what do you hope to achieve if this were to happen again? It sounds like they can cut the power off no matter what. If backup batteries are in place, the alarm will sound at some point? And, then how long would it take for them to disable that? Is it sufficient to scare them away or could they proceed till they disable that as well? And, even if you get some level of backup either by mirroring a NVR or cloud, is that sufficient if they take everything? People wear masks all the time now.

What level of response time would you have if you got sufficient notification that something was happening? Email/push notification? How often would you check it if you are say abroad somewhere? Is there someone else whom could receive those?

So, to me, the question is how do I prevent them from being capable of rummaging through the entire place? And, that may require a separate solution if you are going to be away for a couple weeks. There are some camera systems that can operate independently of your houses power. And, some can also operate independently of your network (3/4G). It might be worthwhile to have one or two of those in key places when away for long periods such that you can either temporarily enable to get a notification (no mater what) and/or a subscription that allows for independent review of the security of your home. Or, you have to ensure full power redundancy and appropriate notifications such that once things start a happening someone is ready to get to cops out there.

An alarm would have 8+ hours of backup with a working battery. With video You simply need 10-15 minuets of power reserves unless they cut power and wait. This allows you to detect someone before they enter the home. I can get push notifications anywhere I am. Instantly. A direct call to the local police with visual confirmation of someone on you property gets a very quick response in almost every municipality.