Moving to a new house. There are 4 doors. All have home depot schlage locksets. The doors are sturdy.

Three doors are windowless, one is windowed, so I think I want that one to be keyed on both sides, or have the "captive" key I can remove as needed.

I intend to hire a locksmith to install new locksets and add reinforcements as needed.

I'd expect I'll end up paying at least $1,000 for the privilege, probably more. I don't mind.

If money was no object, what should I look for? Is there something (relatively common) besides the Medeco stuff?

Thanks!

Assa abloy I heard is good

I use Medeco 3 point locks with steel reinforced frames. I haven't tested it, but I feel very confident that it can't be kicked in in a timely enough fashion to be worth it.



I also just started lock picking, and am okay with it. I can open pretty much any type of lock Home Depot and Lowes sell, but I haven't been able to open my medecos yet. There are lockpicking forums with claims people can do it, but even pros say it's not worth the time. They also protect against drilling, bumping, key copies and more.

Thanks - I should have added.

My acquaintance is a locksmith. He carries Mul-t-Lock and Emtek  (plus the usual kwikset and schlage)

I don't NEED to use him, but thought it would be nice to use someone I know. Should I find someone else?

Internal deadbolts are a safety hazard and not legal in some places. Check with your insurance company.

Assa Abloy Protec with a Drum Gemini shield. But why bother?

Not sure about the "why bother" comment? Do you mean, why bother with good locks?

In my town, we don't have many break-ins, mostly what I'd call "walk-ins"

Few hardcore thieves. But, I am moving to a place with lots more traffic, both on foot and car.

So, I figure if my locks slow someone down, they willl probably go next-door.


Don't outrun the bear, just outrun your friend, and all that...

Tagged, relevant to my needs also.

If your locks are "good enough" that the average person can't pick them reasonably quickly, improving them probably doesn't make your home any more secure unless you have bars blocking all your windows or bulletproof glass.  i.e. If someone wants in bad enough, they're not going to pick the lock, they're going to apply a rock to the most convenient window.

Medeco, Assa/Abloy, Mul-T-Lock, Bi-Lock, I believe a test was done some time back and the Medeco won on brute strength, the kind we need when some meth head shows up at your door and tries to kick it in, some of the others, maybe ASSA/Abloy, scored higher on being pick proof but in a real world residential situation it is going to be hard to beat Medeco (which I believe is owned by ASSA/Abloy now).


ETA Doubled checked and I am correct, I believe this just happened a couple years ago.

Medeco® is an ASSA ABLOY Group company. The ASSA ABLOY Group is the world's leading manufacturer and supplier of locks and associated products, dedicated to satisfying end-user needs for security, safety and convenience.

Actually, I just remembered...bump keys...there were some videos about this a couple of years ago...that locks vulnerable to it can be quickly opened with little or no skill.  I've never tried it...but locks not vulnerable to that would be good.

I've got Medeco M3s in all my outside doors. Most are key-captive. This means that you can set them up like a single cylinder (lock on the outside, twist knob on the inside), but I can remove the twist knob on the inside, and now it becomes a double cylinder deadbolt. Basically, the inside twist knob is a key that stays in the lock, and looks like any single cylinder. But if you have another key, you can release the key-captive twist-key. This keeps you in compliance with local laws that prohibit double-cylinders, but you can turn it in to a double-cylinder when you leave (if you want).

I spent $1000 for the 4 locks, including install and about 8 keys.


I also like lockpicking for fun and sport. Anything from Home Depot is usually easy. I have a set of bump keys and a pin gun and it's disturbing how easy they are to use on typical contractor grade Schlages and Kwiksets.


We have Schlage Primus at work. I can't pick them. My brother teaches lock picking classes for hobbyists. He likes ASSA Abloy.

I also have Medeco, I read the ASSA/Abloy was the most pick proof but there was a $10 buck German tool and a cordless drill and it was compromised. I BELIEVE this was the video I saw at the time that indicated the flaw (probably fixed by now).

Have used Medico since ~1989...

BosnianBill on YouTube FTW. Learned all my lock picking from his vids.

Do you have windows?

Another old adage:  A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

I do have windows, but the only windows that are accessible without a ladder are either:  1) Too small to crawl through or 2) very much exposed to view. So, it is certainly possible to get in.

I just figure that with better locks and stronger doors/jambs, it might make the casual thief try the next spot.

I am just about to buy the house and plan to re-key it anyway. Plus the wife hates the existing stuff, so figure now's a good time to switch.

Why bother because we don't have mission impossible crooks picking locks on residences. Any good lock is enough, because if someone really wants to break in, they will. Smash or cut, they use brute force.

Making your house more difficult a job than your neighbor's is fine idea, but they probably will not get close enough to read your lock brand, and they wouldn't know it anyway.

Start with your landscaping. Put a doghouse in the back yard. Motion detector lights. And a real home security monitoring system with signs.

Security is a holistic concept of layered defenses.

I put schalge in when i bought my house. they stood up to 3 burglaries.

The forst one they pried the door open, deadbolt stood up just fine, frame and studs split in half. i took that lockset out of old new and put it inthe new door and added a piece of 3/16" steel plate approx 6"x24" in the door frame and secured with 6 3" lag bolts. 2 years later burglars tried prying that door open, to no avail. warped steel door, split door frame and studs but did not make entry. face of deadbolt was wrecked from prybar but they did not get in...ended up gettin in back sliding door but thats a different story.

i would have put that same lockset in the new third door but they stole spare house keys so i put another schlage set in. no reinforcement steel plate this time, and front door was kicked in, split frame again. re-used same lock set again.

schlage performed a whole hell of a lot better than id expected, and that steel plate was a great idea....except for the whole "well we'll just break in the back door then"

fucking assholes.

ETA: house is going on the market in the next few weeks.....fuck that place.

ost

95‰,no ,100% of the Crack /meth heads don't know how to pick a lock.  Smash and grab. Do you have a garage? That garage door is easy most of the time.  Windows? Even with ladder,  are easy.   Back door hidden from view? You'd better spend many more $ than just an expensive lock.   Glass is easy door frames not much harder

I have to agree with those here that say that you are probably wasting your money by going with the expensive locks.  Just use Schlage locks and reinforce the jam with long screws and a metal reinforcement.  I have Kwikset on my house and reinforced the door frame.  The crooks ended up prying the front door in and the door itself gave way, split up the edge and it gave way.  This was the plainly visible front door, no bushes, or trees and in broad daylight.  My rear and side door would have been more concealing for them but I guess they were too lazy to walk around the house.  So don't think they won't try to go in your front windows.  Use something like the Strikemaster system (LINK) and make sure you use the door edge reinforcement as that is often a weak link, as it was in my case.  Even if you do spend the $1000k you're planning to spend, if you don't reinforce the door and frame, you've just wasted your money.

Well said. Spend your money on a security expert or professional security company hardening your whole house, not just the locks. They might see something that you might miss.

Keep in mind you need to work with your specific situation.  I have three retired nosy neighbors with a good view of my house, the Medeco locks and reinforced jams would take multiple repeated door kicks vs one kick for a cheap lock/jam. If you live on 5 acres in the country with no close neighbors it would not matter.

Mul-t-Lock kicks ass.

It may buy you enough time to grab your rifle.

If money is no object then replace all entry door with residential vault entry doors.

Son of an old friend is local locksmith. He came by on Monday and took care of us. He reinforced all the door jambs and added a deadbolt to the door where there was only a doorknob lock. All Medeco stuff. He likes it.

His comment was that the locks won't stop anyone, but maybe these will slow them down,.

He also put 8 mil film on two windows. He said that short of adding bars (not gonna happen) this stuff will slow down a smash/grab person enough that they might just move on.

I've got no experience with that. Any comments on the film? I can hardly tell it is there.

All in including parts and labor, I'm out about a grand. But my wife (and me too, frankly) feels better.

The film is good, just one more layer it all amounts to making your house less attractive than easier targets.

You can find youtube videos showing the effectiveness of security film.

If you move, take your Medeco locks with you, just go to Home Depot and put on a 10 buck deadbolt when you move. Most residential
(but not all) doors use the same thickness and backset.

Damn....

How did he go about reinforcing the door jambs?

I have Assa Abloy with the Protec 2 locks... overpriced, but pretty cool. Certainly makes it easy to grab the right key in the dark :)

I did buy them for all my doors and have them keyed alike which is cool though.

(not my pic)


My garage door is a solid steel outswing with steel frame I put in, pretty tough, you'll never kick that in, it has 8 3/8x6" lag screws around it. Front door could use some reinforcement still, but I did do the jam. Definitely get locks that lock on the inside with a key as well so that when you go on vacation even if they do come in through a window they can't go in and open up the doors from the inside (and hopefully you've reinforced it enough that kicking it is not easily viable).  Between that an the cameras, I try to make sure I don't look like a soft target. I even keep my fences locked with padlocks so getting around the house is a pain in the ass until you want to be destructive.

I think nearly ALL of the normal Medeco locks have now been compromised from bumping, as mentioned earlier, BosnianBill is the primary guy when it comes to this stuff.



The issue with that is that it now means any meth head with a few dollars can open your doors. My basic bump key set was $11 and the one with all the fancy security pin profiles was $100.



I have found that most, and by most, like 99% of locksmiths really don't know high security. I've had the purported best locksmith in Houston tell me Schlage Everest is an incredible lock and he could sell me one for $140.

Compared to the $10 shit people normally buy, he'd be right.



But if you want the ONLY lock on earth that cannot be picked and MUST be brute force defeated, that'd be the Abloy.



The earlier posted defeat of the Abloy cylinder doesn't apply to their deadlocks so its a moot point. If you want in an Abloy protected filing cabinet, that YouTube gave you the answer. However their deadbolts are drill proof and not able to be exploited.



If you combine an Abloy deadbolt with EZ Armor the breaching ram the police use will break before your door does.



As for your 8mil film, thats OK (12mil is better) but both are not very good if the only thing you got was the film. They should be fitted with another fixing layer on top round the edges, it looks like weather strip. This actually holds the film and glass in place. Right now if someone attempts to break your window, they will, and it'll fall out in one piece due to the film. With the edging holding it in place, it'll simply flex and stop entry.

I have no idea who "Bosnianbill" is but he is definitely not one of the individuals or part of the groups who did the research and attacks on medeco locks 6-9 years ago. Just about everything on the medeco locks and keying codebooks has been updated since that time.



Not if you have a medeco lock that was properly keyed after 2007-2008. If you have a lock from 2007 or earlier, it is still is a 2 step process that involves some deal of skill and dexterity, nothing like a "meth head" level attack. Not to mention you need time because of the multiple keys you have to try.

Even bumping regular crappy 5-pin locks can be hit or miss sometimes. There are a number of factors that can influence whether or not an attack is successful. Here are a few:

1. Skill and experience of the individual.
2. Age and wear of the lock.
3. Lubrication and dirt levels.  
4. How the cylinder is keyed.
5. Tolerances of the cylinder and pins.

So yes, bumping is an issue with regular locks, but far from the typical fear-mongering video headline "Four year-old can bump your house locks asleep and upside down".

Attacks on high security locks are possible, but they are not trivial and require skill, knowledge, and the right tools.

IHMO the main benefit of a high security lock is key control and force/drill resistance. It takes a lot more time and effort to get a high security key duplicated compared to a standard schalge or kwikset.


Edit: Should have also mentioned the quality of the lock and key you get with a medeco/assa/abloy/multlock/etc . Very thick & heavy brass and steel parts and most of them will probably outlive the user. Open up the home depot kwikset/schlage stuff and look at all the plastic and pot metal. Lucky to get a few years out of them.

Does window film interfere with glass break sensors?