As long as you're willing to pay a decent amount for quality, putting a deadbolt lock on your door will provide an impressive amount of extra protection from burglars. Additionally, as long as you have the right tools on hand and a little DIY experience, it's possible to install a deadbolt yourself. If you want to install a deadbolt lock quickly and efficiently without damaging your door, follow these three tips.
Make Sure That The Door Isn't Too Thin For The Lock
Most deadbolt locks are designed only for doors with a certain thickness to them. However, in situations where your door isn't of a thickness that will easily go with most locks, you can get a lock with an adjustable latch that will fit onto any door inside a certain thickness range.
Usually, if the door is facing the outside world directly and it's meant to fit more or less tightly on its frame, thickness won't be an issue. However, if you're planning to reinforce a door in the interior of your home or building, be very scrupulous when you're using measuring tape to measure the door's thickness.
Remove The Door From Its Hinges And Place It On Plastic Supports
The large drill heads you'll have to use to bore the wide holes needed for the deadbolt will have a tendency to create cracks on your door if you're not careful. While this is a special concern for very old and brittle doors, cracks can also happen to newer doors that are of a normal thickness.
So rather than attempting to hold the door in place between your legs while it's attached to its normal hinges, remove the door and place it over a few plastic supports to make it lie parallel with the ground. Don't just set the door on the ground directly; even if you're careful enough with the drill to not make contact with the concrete or wood underneath the door, the door material around the lock needs to be sitting free in the air to prevent compression caused by the drill head from creating cracks.
Hold Onto The Door's Handle While You're Drilling The Necessary Holes
When you need to steady the door while you're using a large drill head, you might as well hold onto the handle rather than the spine of the door itself. This is because a properly secured door handle will have less of a tendency to shake and rattle while the drill is in use, making it much easier to keep your hand steady and the rest of the door in a stable position.
For more information or assistance, contact local locksmith services.
