One thing to watch out for is the sliding door you may have installed in the back of the house. Sometimes people mount these backward with the sliding part facing outward rather than inward. When you face the sliding part outward it's easy for a burglar to lift up the door and remove it, allowing easy and undetected entry. If the door is mounted inward, there is no way for someone on the outside to grip the door to remove it.
They don't need to grip the door to lift it, they just jam a screwdriver in the track and jack it up.
The easy way to stop all of this is to cut a strip of wood that is just a little thinner than the gap at the top of the door and screwing it in place at the top of the track with the door open. With the door closed, that strip can't be removed and that door can't be lifted.
Andersen wind rated doors are even made that way. The top track barely clears the top of he door and you install the inner edge of the track after you set the door.
You sound pretty sure of yourself. Yet that is EXACTLY how MANY home breakins are done. The slider DOES belong on the inside - but without a block in the top track area to prevent lifting a small pinch bar is all that is required to remove the average sliding door. Toe locks hel too - as does a lock bar (peice of hockey stick works well) dropped into the track to prevent the door being forced far enough to get past the lift block.
I've seen 1x2's placed on the bottom or bottom and top tracks so to prevent the sliding door from being opened. I'm thinking this may help thwart breakins tho I'm not 100% sure on this. I know I once had an attempted break in from the back of my house which also had a sliding door and they either couldn't or chose not to get thru the sliding door. I can't remember whether I had wood in just the bottom or the bottom and top track then. Mine was just wedged in place, no screws.
I have wind code doors on the back of my house. I doubt anyone is lifting them out. The panels are about 300 pounds each and you can't break the glass with a 2x4 shot out of an air cannon. They have pretty good locks too. It will certainly be loud enough to wake up the dog.
My door (Crestline) has a strip of wooden moulding that screws into the frame at the top along the interior face of the slider.
To remove the slider you have to take out 6 screws to remove the moulding and then allow the top of the slider to tilt into the room. The door can not be lifted high enough to clear the bottom track so it can not be removed from outside.
How do they keep the glass from shattering and coming out?
Probably separate question - I heard someone from Florida say there was a film you could put on existing windows that would protect it from an air cannon. All I could figure out was the film kept the shattered glass in a sheet that would come out instead of shrapnel.
Unless there's a special glass in the slider, one would just through a brick through the glass. Safety glass breaks into millions of pieces, no need to lift a door out, too much like work.
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