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Most of the doors we put on here have some challenging or unique security features. This is mainly because it makes for good size up practice.  However a good portion of our doors out there have some sort of factory lock setups on them. It is important not to forget our basics and underestimate these doors. Poor technique and a lack of a good understanding on common lock setups, will  defeat someone just as quick.

Even in higher crime or busy areas of town you will still find occupancies that have not upgraded their security for whatever reason. Some may not do this due to the type of occupancy they are. I’ve seen nightclubs that would rather risk burglaries at night by having normal panic bar setups then risk being fined or shut down due to code violations.

Here is our door in question. This is just a main delivery door on the backside of a church that is located in a larger two story commercial complex.  The other occupanices in this building had very heavily fortified doors, however this was the only one we found with what appeared to be stock lock setups.

When we look at this door and hit our key size up points we see:

Commercial Building
Concrete and Masonry Block Constructions
Metal Frame/Jamb
Double Metal Doors
Commercial Rim Lock Indicating Panic Bars.

What we see is what we get on this door. This door does bring up some points that are important to think about. When we are looking at these double doors it is important for us to take note of what the primary door is. On this one it would be the door that has the handle and rim lock on it. On other doors it just may be a door knob and a deadbolt. This is important for a couple of reasons. Many times the primary door has less security to it because it is used more often. Many buildings that do not need the wide access of both doors will use extra locks or slide bolts on the unused side to make it more stable which intern makes the primary door more stable when it latches.  Take a look at the inside.

This door is a good example of a common way that panic bars are setup on double doors. The primary door simply has a latch that secures into its keeper mounted on the secondary door. The secondary door has the top and bottom throws connected to its panic bar. This is to keep the door nice and stable for the primary lock.

If we forced the primary door we have a simple irons work door that would be forced very quickly. If we had chosen the secondary door it would have presented a more difficult door with two locks, both of them being blind. The top and bottom throws could easily present complications and slow us down.

This is not a difficult door if we use proper technique and have a solid knowledge of door size up.

This entry was posted on 07/13/2011 at 2:53 pm and is filed under 1. Forcible Entry. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: door size up, double metal doors, forcible entry, panic bar forcible entry