Strike Plates for Doors

Door Strike Plate

At PROTECTION PLUS® we offer secu­ri­ty solu­tions for your home and busi­ness. We under­stand the ben­e­fits and flaws of var­i­ous secu­ri­ty options and offer prod­ucts that help enhance your cur­rent secu­ri­ty set­up. When you are look­ing for an afford­able way to add an addi­tion­al lay­er of secu­ri­ty, a new strike plate might be right for you. Strike plates are designed to help pre­vent entry door break-ins, but most lack the strength to pro­tect from forced entry. In the Greater Toron­to Area, intrud­ers use entry doors to access prop­er­ty, mak­ing entry door secu­ri­ty enhance­ments the log­i­cal choice when look­ing for effec­tive secu­ri­ty improve­ments for your home.

What is a Strike Plate?

The strike plate is part of your door hard­ware. Its job is to rein­force the door latch and lock area of your door to pro­tect and strength­en the door jamb when the door is closed and locked. How­ev­er, stan­dard strike plates for entry doors tend to be too small and are installed with screws that are too short to with­stand forced entry such as a kick. Secu­ri­ty strike plates are larg­er and thick­er to pro­vide addi­tion­al rein­force­ment around the door jamb offer­ing bet­ter sup­port for your extend­ed latch or dead­bolt. They can with­stand com­mon break-in tac­tics includ­ing kick-ins, door pry­ing and jamb spread­ing.

Who needs a New Strike Plate?

Unless you have a qual­i­ty dead­bolt lock mount­ed in a high-qual­i­ty door, the chances are high that your door jamb won’t with­stand forced entry. What tends to be the weak­est link for a basic entry door instal­la­tion is the strike plate and door jamb. Even the stur­di­est door lock won’t pro­tect your home from forced entry if the strike plate is miss­ing, or weak. Although you can pur­chase a strike plate from a hard­ware store and install it your­self, most options you’ll find are far too “light duty” to pro­tect against intrud­ers. If you want extra rein­force­ment, your door requires a longer plate designed to grip more of the door frame and remain in place when force is applied thanks to the longer, stur­dier screws that pen­e­trate sev­er­al inch­es into the door frame and stud. This is the only way to ensure your door has the strength need­ed to with­stand force­ful entry, such as an intrud­er try­ing to kick your door in. As well, if you have a smart lock, they are even more vul­ner­a­ble with insuf­fi­cient instal­la­tion hard­ware and short, poor-qual­i­ty strike plates that fail when some­one kicks in the door.

Security Strike Plate Features

Secu­ri­ty strike plates offer three key improve­ments to your entry doors:

  1. Added length: The longer strike plate pro­vides stur­dy met­al rein­force­ment to the soft­wood door jamb mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to pry the door open or kick the door in.
  2. Longer screws: The length of the screws pro­vide extra strength by secur­ing the plate more effec­tive­ly to the door jamb by con­nect­ing to the stud locat­ed behind the jamb. This reduces the risk of the screws dis­lodg­ing when some­one tries to force the door open.
  3. Stag­gered screw place­ment: The holes pro­vid­ed in a secu­ri­ty strike plate are stag­gered to pro­vide extra anchors and dif­fer­ent posi­tions for the long screws that go direct­ly into the stud. This adds even more strength to pro­tect against force­able entry.

If you would like more infor­ma­tion about secu­ri­ty strike plates, speak to our team today. We spe­cial­ize in secu­ri­ty solu­tions and can rec­om­mend afford­able options to help pro­tect your prop­er­ty.

Door Strike Plate

The strike plate on most doors is often a weak and over­looked part of your door hard­ware. If the dead­bolt is a qual­i­ty lock mount­ed in a high-qual­i­ty door, the chances are slim that the door will break if some­one tries to kick in the door. The weak link then becomes the door frame, not the door or lock. Con­se­quent­ly, it is imper­a­tive the dead­bolt strike plate is large enough and strong enough to rein­force the door frame and deter, even pre­vent, the door from being kicked in by rob­bers and home invaders.

Most Big Box store brands of dead­bolts and locks come with small light-duty door strikes. For extra rein­force­ment longer plates that will grip more of the door frame with screws that pen­e­trate sev­er­al inch­es into the door frame and wall are need­ed. The way the strike plate is installed (or not installed) will deter­mine the real strength of your door sys­tem.