‘Skilled locksmiths are not cheap and cheap locksmiths are not skilled.’ This blog piece is an explanation of costs when you call a locksmith.
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National Home Security Month
You probably won’t know this, but every October in the UK is National Home Security Month. October was chosen for a reason and that is because it’s when the evenings are noticeably darker. That makes it easier for the burglar to know when properties are occupied, and it makes it easier for the intruder to hide in dark corners. Garden hedges are a fantastic place for intruders to hide if they think they have been caught in the act, and they will actively seek out properties with large, softer hedges as potential hiding spots at night. A plain fence might be boring, but it can be the difference between you not being burgled as a matter of choice, over your neighbour.
One of the interesting facts that I read in my magazine for lock geeks this month was that while cylinder snapping is still the number one method of entry (less than 60 secs with no power tools if you only have standard locking cylinders on your UPVC/composite door), a growing number are using the garage where there is a connecting door from the garage to the house. Garages and sheds are notorious for poor security anyway, so these overlooked entrances are an easy target. When the connecting doors often have only 2 or 3 lever locks, there are simple tools that do the job.
Recently I had to gain entry to a property where one partner was denying the other entry over a domestic dispute by leaving a key on the inside of the lock. The locks themselves were top level and ordinarily, would have put me off, but I knew the key was on the other side. Once I checked my customer had legal right to enter the property, I started work. I have an ‘outside in’ tool that goes through the letter box and allowed me to rotate the key and open the door. My point is this, no matter how good your lock is, if you leave a key on the inside of a door with a letter box, or have a thumb turn on the inside, you might as well not bother locking your door. The letterbox is a massive temptation for thieves. Many people leave car keys, door keys and the like on surfaces near front doors. It is very convenient after all. But thieves can go fishing through letter boxes and easily reach things you thought were safe. A good cheap deterrent is a letter bin that goes over the inside of the letterbox. Your newspaper delivery person will not thank you, but you will be more secure. Better still, get an external post box and seal your letterbox completely. Your locksmith won’t thank you if you lose your keys, but he/she will admire your security consciousness.
On that note, there are now safe lockable delivery boxes for all the large packages we now receive from the likes of Amazon. Having watched hours of doorcam footage on Youtube of doorstep thieves, I cannot recommend these enough. Please enquire if you would like more information.
Back to this dispute case; At the same house, I was asked to open the garage. As I said above, garages are often terrible in terms of security and often hold great bounties for opportunists who have time to sell stuff on ebay or at car boot sales. The front up and over door was actually quite secure. I could have opened it with time consuming picking or drilling, but the side human entrance door was poorly fitted and although there was a good five lever mortice lock in place, the gap between door and frame was so big, I popped the door in seconds. As there was a lot of high value stuff being stored in this garage, the security was woefully inadequate, but very normal in comparison to what I see on a daily basis. My point is, do not overlook the security of your exterior buildings. Normally I say one good lock is a good enough deterrent, but on buildings with flimsy doors where we increasingly keep valuable stuff, two locks are going to slow down the intruder enough to make him consider going elsewhere for an easier target.
If you have any questions regarding the above, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone, email or the contact section of this site.
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Changing the locks on a brand new property
There seems to be a massive drive to build new homes lately. Almost everywhere you go, you are bound to be driving past a new build construction site. You might even be looking at a nice newly built home in your area, or even bought one. The beauty of a new home over an older one is that you can move in knowing you have nothing to do. The carpets are already fitted to your criteria, the sparkly kitchen gleams and there is no worry that some random neighbour has a spare key to your home, so why are we advising changing the locks on a brand new property?
Why change the locks?
Quite frankly, the developers will do the minimum possible to meet regulations, and currently in the UK the regulations just are not up to the same level as the burglars. New homes are all being built with multi-point locking mechanisms and while all the hooks, bolts and rollers look impressive and secure, the system is only as good as its’ weakest part, which is the locking cylinder. While standard locking Euro Cylinders are acceptable for insurance purposes, they are incredibly weak to a form of attack called ‘cylinder snapping’. Property developers will use these standard cylinders wherever possible.
Some of the more reputable developers will at least have the decency to install kite marked Euro cylinders in their doors, but beyond the kite mark, there are still three grades of security, which cover the three main forms of attack, those being snap, pick and drilling. So a cylinder with one star will be proof against picking but not the other two, and a cylinder with two stars will still be susceptible to attack by one of the three main methods. You can supplement the star rating by having anti-snap collars placed inside the handles, or anti-drill handles. You may even have these, but if you don’t know, then the burglar doesn’t know either and he is likely to have a go, fail and leave your door a mess before he leaves. Only a three star cylinder should be used if you want the burglar to go away before even trying.
With total honesty, there is a tool that can be purchased to bypass even some of the best three star cylinders, but it takes time use and is fiddly. Entry with this tool is trial and error, sometimes taking many minutes to get in the door, whereas a standard cylinder can be snapped in under 60 seconds with household tools and no sound. For the same reason a burglar will not take the time to remove your roof tiles and enter that way, he will not purchase a tool that takes him many times longer to get in than the cheap tools he can get from a DIY store.
Cylinder snapping is no longer about normal burglary any more; Intruders know that most people leave their car keys somewhere in the vicinity of the front door, be they left on a surface, hanging on a convenient hook, or just in a coat pocket. They can now look for the car they want to steal parked nicely on your front drive. As most of us are now two car families, at least one will sit on the drive, and if that car is your brand new Mercedes or BMW and you keep your keys close to an easily attacked door, your insurance might decide not to pay out because you didn’t take enough care. How many people tell their insurance the car is kept in the garage, knowing that actually the garage is full of the toot we don’t want in our actual houses? Breaking into a house and stealing the keys is now the easiest way to steal their car.
And while a barking dog is a deterrent to some degree, what protects your home when you are on holiday or even out walking that dog?
Most three star Euro cylinders are visibly different to standard cylinders. They shout at the burglar you are serious about home security and that attacking your home is going to be noisy and time consuming. Noise and time are the enemy of the burglar. If he knows breaking into your home is going to be noisy and take up precious time, he is going to move on. If you fit the proper cylinders, chances are you will be angry with the locksmith after years and years of never seeing any signs of attack. You will never know how many intruders scouted your home and mentally noted to leave you alone. It’s not hard. I help my kids with their paper round, and the best locks stick out like a sore thumb. I know exactly how few there are and where they are. A potential intruder only has to deliver some bogus leaflets in any area to work out who is best avoided.
While on this subject, an emailed question asked if it worth putting extra strength glue in an externally beaded window so that if the burglar got the beading off the window would still be stuck in place. Beading removal was never a hugely popular method of attack. There was always too much potential to make noise and take a long time. Also, the risk of breaking glass and then cutting oneself is too high, even without extra glues. Cylinder snapping is quick, quiet and easy. So faced with a choice, you should always upgrade your cylinders.
If you have standard cylinders or even kite marked one star cylinders, you should upgrade now. If you don’t know what you have, a good locksmith in your area will come and assess your locks via a free security check. Unless a locksmith has provided your locks, I very much doubt they will be the best on the market. You cannot buy the best locks in the DIY shops. While you are ensuring you have the best locks, you should be sending a copy of this information to everyone you care about, because of the following reasons:
- Burglary is on the rise.
- Traditionally ‘safe’ areas are being burgled more often.
- Only a tiny fraction of burglaries get investigated by police.
- You are now at risk from car thieves as well.
- Burglars pass on information to each other, so if you are burgled once, you stand an increased chance of being hit again.
- Every person I speak to who has experience a burglary, reports feeling of personal violation, sleepless nights and detachment from their home.
If you have any questions regarding the above information or any of the other blogs I have written, please get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.
Thanks for reading.
New build Holt, New build Fakenham, New build Aylsham, New build Cromer,
New build North Walsham, New Build Norfolk, Locks Holt, Locks Fakenham,
Locks Aylsham, Locks Cromer, Locks North Walsham, Locks Norfolk
Smart Locks – Again! I am having a growing number of people asking me for help with smart locks they are buying for themselves. Many of you are expecting simple installation (as advised by the manufacturers) only to find things a bit more complicated than you might expect. The same can be said for some smart doorbells and supposedly easy installation security equipment like smart CCTV and alarms.
Smart security is still a young technology. Smart locks can decrease your security level and even make your insurance void in many cases. A lot of smart locks are aimed at an American market and their lock requirements are not as stringent as ours.
Smart locks are not always more convenient than key operated locks either. With a key operated lock, you take your key out of your pocket as you approach your door, and you are in without thinking about it. With a smart lock, you might have to carry a tag (easier to break than a key) or you might have to get out your phone, wait ages for the phone to recognise your face/thumbprint/pin code, find the app, open the app and then find the unlock button within the app.
Smart doorbells/doorcams can take loads of footage and send you endless emails of people passing your property but not actually approaching your door, or better still the spider web spun overnight and blowing in the breeze, setting off the sensor. You have to weigh up the options of battery (not good if your door opens onto a busy street) versus mains power (might need long wires or an electrician to wire it in safely).
Your smart CCTV might not be able to tell the difference between a small dog and a human, in which case you are going to be poring through hours of watching what Fido was doing while you were out all day while Fido himself is desperately waiting for you to take him walkies!
And smart alarms can be much better than you thought. Would you like your elderly Mum to just have an alarm for when she goes out to the shop, or would you like a system where if she takes a fall, she can press a button on a neck loop and the alarm system not only calls you, but lets you speak two-way to asses the potential emergency. Do you want your alarm system to incorporate a smoke detector and CO2 detector. Which virtual assistant device do you want it to be compatible with? Do you want it easy to take with you to a new property? Do you want it future proof or easy to do add-ons in order to keep the initial cost down?
There are so many things to think about when buying smart security products and they are rarely as easy to install as their blurb would have you believe. Any decent locksmith/security installer will provide you with free advice and quotations. You should always consult a professional before purchase. Not the person in the shop, but a person who installs and knows the pitfalls.
If you have any questions regarding the above information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or phone 07846643176
Thanks for reading!
Previous Smart Lock posts: When is a smart lock not so smart
Smart Locks – what you need to know
Lockdown key thoughts on home security
Lockdown key thoughts – As we enter another lockdown, home security might not be at the forefront of your mind, but be aware; Just yesterday, the delivery person for Amazon left two packages at my front door without so much as a knock or ring of the doorbell (four people in the house and no one heard a thing). Lockdown means we move to even more to on-line shopping and, despite the rules to have us stay at home, we are still doing school runs, grocery shopping and personal exercise. A package openly sat outside your front door may be enticing to an opportunist to make a quick grab. Please keep on top of your orders and if you can’t be in, talk to a neighbour to at least keep an eye out for the delivery. Don’t think asking the delivery driver to put the package in your unlocked shed is a good idea either. Sheds are one of the first places burglars look because the security is often extremely poor. Look in your local community paper for the police reports, sheds are often on the reports, with tools be stolen to make a quick turnaround at boot fairs, etc. Plus whatever other goodies you may have there.
The other place we do not secure enough is our garage. So many garages can be popped open with a single tool. And the locks are rarely difficult to pick for someone with a little time. We store so much in our garages these days, it hardly makes sense for the burglar to even bother with the house itself. Investing in a good garage door defender can make a huge difference. If you have lots of stuff in your garage, you should talk to your local locksmith today about better garage security.
CCTV is becoming ever more important for home security. A smart door cam will capture anyone approaching your front door whether they ring the bell or not. And if you are out, you can talk to the delivery person and tell them exactly where to put your package. HD, wireless smart cameras upload directly to the cloud, meaning no one can break in and then steal your recording device. They might not stop the thief but a combination of visible deterrents and smaller hidden cameras will get an image the police can use to convict the intruder.
Smart products continue to be ever more popular, but security and smart locks in the UK are a minefield. While most smart locks on the market may be fine for standards in countries like the USA, here in the UK our insurance quite rightly insists on locking and security products having a British Standard (BS) 3621 rating to show it has been tested against all the main attacks burglars use. Most smart locks do not reach this level and therefore buying a smart device without professional guidance may actually be making your security worse. That being said, there are now some excellent products for owners of second homes or holiday lets with limited access control that allows you to control who can access your property and when without the need for multiple keys or requiring guests to meet someone before they can start enjoying their holidays. As this is a tax deductible cost, there is nothing to stop you making sure your guests/traders/cleaners, etc have Covid safe entry to your property. If your local locksmith is not up to date with ways to do this, please message me and I can guide you to some excellent products.
Even safes are now going smart, with biometric options and attractive slim wall mounted safes that can be positioned at a level where people can get to them easily without having to get down low every time you want something. Many burglaries are facilitated by keys being left in the vicinity of the front door where they can be fished through the letter box. Having a wall mounted digital safe holding keys and a few other essentials, will cut down your chances of being attacked.
Smart alarm systems are more than just alerts that your home has been attacked. They can be tailored to incorporate smoke alarms, CO2 detectors and panic buttons. If you have an elderly relative and they have a fall, pressing a button on a remote around their neck auto dials pre-stored numbers until one picks up. They can then talk to you through the system, allowing you to asses the seriousness of the problem and decide on what action to take.
Home security is about looking more secure than your neighbours. If the burglar can see you are a harder target, they will seek easier pickings elsewhere. The cylinder of a traditional nightlatch (often called a “Yale”) and the cylinder of most UPVC doors can be picked in seconds by someone who is skilled enough. These locks are like magnets to the potential intruder, because they know the other ways to bypass these locks as well. Swapping these locks for visibly different anti-pick locks show the potential burglar that you mean business with your home security.
These are the standard barrels:
Nightlatch:
UPVC door barrel (Euro cylinder):
And now the visibly different, better nightlatch barrel:
And kite marked Euro cylinder:
There are some kite marked products that still employ the old style keys, but you have to get up close to see these are kite marked. The locks using “dimple cut” keys and similar, are visibly different, meaning the burglar can often see from the road that you have better locks, making him less likely to even set foot on your property. And yes, your local locksmith will charge you more for products than you can find on line or even in some shops, but he only has a van and can only carry limited stock. But you can trust that he does not want to come back for a recall, so he will make sure he only fits quality products.
It may be you are looking for improved security for you or your family, you may want them to be able to keep their independence, while having the safety net of being able to call you direct for help if they have a fall? You may need limited access solutions? Or you like the idea of a slim profile wall safe? Perhaps it would be easier for the emergency services to be given a code to unlock your frail relative’s door if you are not able to be near? If you have any questions regarding the above information, please get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.
Thanks for reading!
Christmas 2020.
It’s been a difficult year for all of us, but, hopefully, the new vaccines give a light at the end of the tunnel.
I would just like to remind you that I am available as normal over the Christmas period with no nasty price hikes for attending on bank holidays or out of office hours.
From myself and my family, I hope you can make the most of this strange Christmas and look forward to a better 2021.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Door Cams advantages
Right now, video door cameras are being advertised heavily across the radio; The Ring system from America is making big strides into the UK market, but there is a British brand that is just as good. The ERA door cam looks a lot like its American cousin, but is made here and links into the ERA complete security system giving you the top rated wireless smart system in the country. With cloud-based storage for free initially, it really is the way to go? What are the Door Cam advantages?
But what do you actually get from a door cam? Well, for a start, you can answer your door from anywhere in the world, so if you are on holiday in Spain, and a delivery arrives, you can talk to the delivery person and tell him/her where to leave your parcel. The door cam will also automatically record anyone who comes within the field of vision, meaning you have a log of everyone who approaches your door whether they ring the bell or not, night or day. This means you can look back through files to see if any suspicious people are scouting your property for a later burglary. There is nothing to stop you fitting one of these door cams to your back door as well. One of the summer scams is that a decoy person will ring your front doorbell and distract you with some sales ploy while their accomplice will be ready to dive in your open back door and steal whatever they find. Having a door cam on the back door destroys their chances of doing this. Even if they damage the camera, it will have filmed them approaching and sent the images straight to the cloud.
There is another hidden advantage to the door cam. Increasingly, they seem to capture people doing silly things and the footage finds its way onto the internet. So, if you want to be an internet sensation, you can always fall over in front of your door cam!
Door cams are promoted as easy to install, but it very rarely goes as easy as expected. They do not tell you that you will be required to do some electrical wiring when hooking the bell up to your existing built in doorbell. If you don’t already have a mains powered doorbell, there are extras you will need to buy. Having your local locksmith install the door cam takes all the potential hassle out of the equation and guarantees every bit. A good local locksmith will do a free survey and quotation for you. It might cost a bit more, but it is a much easier approach.
AC Locksmiths Norfolk is proud to be an ERA recognised installer able to answer any questions you may have on this British product.
If you have any questions regarding the above, please get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.
Thanks for reading.
