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Door #3 is found on the backside of a 2 story commercial building. The front side consists of storefronts on the first floor with offices on the second floor accessed by a common stairwell. Attention to detail while sizing up this door may just make the difference in how we would attack it. Hit our key size up points, take a guess on the exterior picture and then scroll down to see if you were right.

Key points to identify for door size up:                                           

–          Building Occupancy

–          Construction Type (mainly the wall around door)

–          Which way the door swings

–          Type of door material 

–          Type of frame and jamb

–          Locking devices and Bolt patterns (additional security devices)

Exterior of Door # 3

Interior of Door #3

The interior picture makes it clear why the offset bolts are mounted as seen. This homemade multi-lock has a single handle in the center that slides the flat throws into place on each side of the frame. The throws sit  into the jamb and are then pinned behind the mount. This would prevent someone from reaching through a cut hole in the door and activating the handle. Another option found on this type of lock uses padlocks in place of pins.

The most common type of multi-lock in this area are the homemade ones as seen above. The commercially sold Fox Locks that activate in the same manner are uncommon in this part of the country. A big difference in these homemade multi-locks and the commercially sold ones is the access from the outside. Most multi-locks that are commercially made have the option of a key cylinder on the outside that allows you to activate the lock (which gives us the option of thru-the-lock), very rarely does a homemade multi-lock have this option.

Here is the breakdown of our size up:

1. The common door knob showing (key in the knob) tells us that we have very little resistence in our primary lock and that this door does not have panic hardware.

2. The offset carriage bolts should alert us of a possible multi-lock instead of a drop bar that is found so commonly on the backside of buildings. This is where the attention to detail comes into play because it would be very easy to assume a drop bar setup.

This entry was posted on 01/17/2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under 1. Forcible Entry. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: door size up, forcible entry, halligan, irons, multi-lock