PVC door locks

[Wibble]

up to find my front door like this. Someone broke into the house. As you can see the lock and handle didnt give much of a fight. They even gave me a leaflet about new sercure door handles!

Are all door locks as crappy as this? The door is only a year old.

[diy-newby]

I had the exact same thing happen to me last month. Basically it's the euro lock that is the weakest point. Lock is in two parts help together by the screw that holds it to the door. They break the handle so they can get some mole grips on the lock housing than break that. Job done.

You can get some locks that are designed to break before the join so if it happens again the lock is not breached.

[RobertL]

You'd think they'd reccommend a less secure replacement to make their job easier next time they want to break in.

Robert

[Simon]

Does anyone know whether the "Oval" section lock cylinders are more resistant to this kind of attack than "Euro" profile cylinders - they appear to contain more metal, so might be stronger. You can see the difference on this page:

[fred]

In article , Simon writes

protection, there needs to be something beefy around the cylinder to protect it and those shitmetal door handles just can't hack it. I know how to protect these cylinders on wooden doors but don't have the experience on uPVC stuff to recommend a really strong replacement.

[thelyricalterrapin]

Do you think something like this would help?

Keith

[fred]

It's a brave attempt but I reckon I could still pop that in 30s using a small variation on the typical attack (a 20s improvement on the usual

10s for such a setup).

Its weakness is that it has limited lateral stability and only has a single bolt fixing. Both are understandable, the narrow styles of uPVC frames make a wider fitting difficult to accommodate and current lock mechs don't appear to have the additional holes required to make bolt through furniture with multiple fixings more feasible.

I'd say it's better than nothing but don't expect miracles.

What's needed is a handle made out of something a lot beefier which protects the cylinder from attack and bolts through top and bottom with concealed head bolts but that's going to cost money that most won't be prepared to pay.

Okay, bit of lateral thinking later, it may be possible to protect the handle by fitting it within a tight fitting and hefty metal channel:

(use fixed pitch font)

Viewed from bottom:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH H HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH H H XX IIIICCCCCIIII XX XX I CCCCC I XX XX I CCCCC I XX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX =B= =B= H,I Handle =B= C Cylinder =B= X Channel B Bolt-thro' fixing (top & bottom)

There's still room around the cylinder which is bad or security so adding the cylinder protector to mention could improve the situation, mount it on top of the channel without cutting through to the PVC.

Manufacture is straightforward but non trivial as you'd need to cut a Euro shaped hole in the base of the channel but an angle grinder would shape up the rest & round off the ends of the channel nicely in no time. Most aesthetic material would probably be stainless.

Other halves may consider it too ugly for house room but suggest it is a visual deterrent to get round this.

[fred]

In article , [e-mail] writes

Here's another idea for strengthening original handle:

The problem with these is that they cheap, light and hollow castings so they have no real strength.

A basic solution is to fill the hollow handle with wire reinforcement then pot the whole lot up using epoxy to add strength. Points to watch would be:

1. The area by the cylinder is particularly thin so the reinforcement will need to be fine but strong, perhaps 22swg piano wire (degreased & roughened).
2. Additional strength will come from continuous or overlapping reinforcement, make sure reinforcing wires go all the way to the ends, go round the fixing holes then return.
3. Roughen the inside of the handle and degrease it to encourage adhesion of the epoxy.
4. Shield the handle mech with plasticene, there's no need to remove it after as it will just squidge out of the way.
5. Use an old euro cylinder to mask the cylinder hole and to provide a channel for the one in the door. Smear the cylinder with vaseline to aid release.
6. Try to fill as much of the available space with reinforcement.
7. Use a tough long cure epoxy and warm it encourage it to pour into all the corners and between all the reinforcement.

If anyone feels really exotic then I'm sure carbon or kevlar fibres would do an even better job. Fibre loaded epoxy would prob do but I think the thin areas around the cylinder need a little more in the way of continuous strands.

HTH

[diy-newby]

Or, just put a dog bowl outside

[fred]

In article , diy-newby writes

:-D

fine until it gets nicked

[Simon]

It looks like this manufacturer has taken the idea a bit further:

but what I really want is a door handle with a backplate made from solid steel, or at least solid aluminium.