7 ways to enhance the security of your house

Sunita Vellapally Sunita Vellapally
homify Rustic style windows & doors
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Security is an important factor that needs to be considered while designing and building a house. After all, it’s no point having a beautiful home that is the envy of the neighbourhood if it doesn’t keep the residents – your family – safe from intruders or other security risks. While grills, boundary walls and other elements can be added to enhance the security of your home, ideally, they should be included in the planning stage so that they blend aesthetically into the overall design of the house.

Today, we highlight 7 ways in which you can make your house safer to live in.

1. Window grills

In modern homes, glass has replaced wood for windows. While it is a great way to bring in natural light, glass doesn’t offer much protection as it is easy to break open. Fixing iron grills as an additional layer of security, not only helps to keep the home safe from intruders, but it also prevents birds and monkeys from entering the home through the open windows during the daytime.

2. Double layered door

Strong wooden doors are generally considered safe. However, intruders have been known to break open locks and enter homes through wood doors. Providing a grill door protecting the main door at night, or when you are away from home for an extended period, makes the house more secure.

3. Access control

Modern technology offers touch pad or electronic key access systems to help to burglar-proof homes. Fixing an access panel at the side of the front door facilitates entry only to residents, once they input the right combination of numbers into the key pad. Access control is also a great feature for electronically-controlled gates as it gets visitors to announce themselves from the gate through a speaker, allowing the homeowner to open the gate with a remote control to grant them access.

4. Garage door

While a lot of consideration goes into providing security for the main door, garages are often overlooked. However, it’s important to keep them secure. Open garages or those without locks give intruders the opportunity to steal your vehicles. More importantly, if your garage has a small access door that leads into the house, burglars could break in through that door. Fixing electronically controlled garage doors or lockable roll down shutters can keep this area safe.

5. Boundary wall

A beautiful home draws a lot of admiration to the point that a low boundary wall gives intruders easy access to the garden or yard and, from there, into your home. Reinforcing the boundary wall with a metal rail at the top can make it more difficult for anyone to jump over the wall.

6. CCTV

Homes in gated communities often don’t have fences or boundary walls between houses. Similarly, in a house with front and back entrances, it’s impossible to monitor both sides continuously. Installing CCTV at the entrances to capture a video feed keeps intruders at bay.

7. Fire safety equipment

Last, but not the least – sometimes homes come under threat from within, such as a fire caused by a short circuit in the electrical installation or a gas leak in the kitchen. It pays to be prepared with fire safety equipment to take immediate action. Smoke alarms and hand-held fire extinguishers are a good investment for houses. For larger buildings with many floors, it’s better to invest in heavy-duty fire safety equipment that can be used until the fire department arrives to take over.

For some tips on keeping your home safe when you are away for a long time, see this ideabook.

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