Euro locks - key blocking

In message <rlpvs7$kof$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 15:33:27 on Fri, 9 Oct

The second one is more to do with the way the doors work, than the lock. Almost all uPVC doors require you to lift the handle up to engage the (usually multiple) bolts.

And ?

No different to the fact that the traditional front door had a level action lock as well as the Yale lock with latch.

Just lazy design and marketing. And if the newer design is "Euro" then it's one ocassion where all things Euro are not necessarily as good as what they replace.

Besides, as I noted, it is now possible to get doors with a latch. Which is a whole new issue for a generation that grew up without one. My lad has managed to shut the door on himself twice when we've called round (we meet outside due to Covid).

In message <rlrn53$kof$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 07:16:52 on Sat, 10 Oct

The multiple bolts make the door close more firmly and keeps out draughts. More secure too.

Very different - that's just one bolt.

If you want *only* a Yale lock, I suppose you could fit one, and disable the door's normal locking mechanisms.

I wasn't arguing that point. It's the loss of *2* functions that the traditional door+yale+lever lock had that irritates. Especially when it's treated as a trivial if not non-issue by the industry.

And, once again, it can't have been just me, since you can now get doors with latching locks as well as the multi point locks.

No, but the same as a traditional Yale lock - no key, no entry.

(He had to climb over the fence to get round the back ...)

or just install one with a thumb turn on the inside

there's no need to have a key-lockable lock on the inside

so just install separate door bolts

If someone has broken in via a window, an easy=open door makes it far easier to escape with his ill=gottten goods. Advice from our local Police Crime Prevention Officer.

Plod is thick isn't he?

Strikes me as sound advice. Someone leaving via the front door is invisible, whereas someone exiting via a broken window is a tad more conspicious. Certainly it was one reason why I didn't fit thumbturns to our doors.

actually, no. I kow him quite well.

Or if the door itself has even a small window.

When someone broke into my parents' house, my mum is sure she disturbed the burglars. She got back and found that the Yale lock in the front door wouldn't open, so she went round the back to try the back door - which was locked but she was able to unlock it. She found the front door now wide open, and some cash missing from a drawer in the bedroom. Seems that the burglars had locked the front door to give themselves some warning of when the owner came home, and then made their escape while my mum went round the back. My grandma was sitting in the car by the front door and saw nothing of the men passing right by her...

I remember we all had to go down to the local police station to be fingerprinted so our prints could be eliminated from ones that the SOCO took - this was in the days when break-ins were still investigated by the police.

It seems that the burglars were very small or had used a child to gain entry, because the window where they got in was a small fanlight at the top of a window frame round the back: dad had removed the catch the day before while he repainted the window, and had left the window closed but unlocked, planning to refit the catch once the paint was fully dry. The insurance company said this window was so small that they didn't consider it as "leaving the house insecure".

Surely there aren't many houses actually left in a state where you can't leave without 'breaking out'. I know it's recommended but in the real world does one ever actually make a house that secure? It is also rather dangerous unless you *always* unlock all the locked windows and doors when you return so that escape in an emergency is easier.

Especially as new windows fitted since < ? > are supposed to have escape mechanisms [in case of fire].

A window that can be locked, and the key removed still meets the requirement of an "escape window" providing it it large enough and can be retained open without being needing to be held.

Finding it hard to parse that. Are you saying an escape window can be locked closed, and the key discarded, meaning it's no longer possible to use it for escaping?

yes.

Building regs, document B1, Section 2.10

So the only way to escape through it is to break the glass and clear the broken glass away from the frame so you can climb through it. And that's classed as "an escape window"? That building reg would seem to be utterly absurd ;-)