Let It Slide: Choosing The Best Sliding Security Doors To Protect Your Home

Blog

Sliding doors are a perennially popular choice for residences across Australia and the world at large, providing unparalleled air flow and natural light levels to let you enjoy the best of the summer weather. However, traditional glass panel sliding doors also present an enormous hole in the security defences of homes they are installed in, and many burglaries and home invasions start with intruders breaking through fragile, unsecured sliding doors.

However, security concerns should not deprive you of the sliding doors of your dreams, and security door manufacturers offer a wide variety of high-security doors for residential as well as commercial use. These secure sliding doors are far more robust than their traditional cousins and can turn away even the most determined intruder -- however, sliding security doors also come in a wide variety of types and variants, so you should make sure the doors you choose are most suited to your needs. Keep the following important questions in mind when deciding on a sliding security door model:

Should the door use bars or mesh for protection?

Sliding security doors protect their panes of glass from intrusion with either solid, robust metal bars or more flexible metal meshes. Each of these options has its own pros and cons.

Barred security doors are excellent if you wish to minimise the amount of natural light lost through your doors, as the widely spaced bars provide plenty of avenues for sunlight to shine into your home. Their clean looks also make them more attractive than mesh doors in the eyes of many, and their looks can be further enhanced with decorative metalwork on your bars. However, they are vulnerable if intruders bring powerful cutting tools to bear, such as angle grinders of bolt cutters. They also provide little protection for the glass behind them.

Metal meshes provide much more protection for the glass of your sliding doors and are available in a variety of weave densities so you can finely balance security with natural light levels. Tight meshes are even capable of pulling double duty as mosquito screens, keeping unwanted insects out of your home as effectively as unwanted humans. However, all mesh doors block more natural light than barred doors, and thinner meshes can be cut through by particularly determined intruders. 

What metal should my bars or mesh be made from?

Metal is the material of choice for virtually every security door on the market to day, but different types of metals are used for different sliding door arrangements:

• Wrought iron is a popular choice for barred security doors and can be sculpted into attractive and intricate designs if looks are important to you. Unfortunately, wrought iron bars become vulnerable to rust once their protective paint layers wear away.
• Aluminium can be used for bars or mesh and combines adequate strength with lightness and superb rust resistance. Light aluminium meshes are particularly easy to operate on sliding doors but are more vulnerable to cutting than more robust metals.
• Stainless steel marries the rust resistance of aluminium with the strength of raw steel and provides unmatched protection when used in secure sliding doors. Unfortunately, it is quite expensive, and its weight can make some sliding doors stick or jam if not properly hung and adjusted.

19 July 2017