Getting a secure entry door and quality lock are very important steps. Many people choose to overlook it, assuming that "it's alarm's job to keep you safe" so-to-speak. In reality, alarm is an add-on layer of security, not a substitute to having a door that is very difficult to break in.

Steps in securing and strengthening your door.

• Your outside doors should be solid hardwood or metal-clad.
• Ideally you will have no glass panels in or near your entry door.
• Consider changing your outside door to open outswing. That will make it dramatically harder to kick the door in.
  Alternatively, you can keep your door to be inswing, and install a steel security screen door to open outswing.
• Get a quality wide-angle peephole.
• Get high quality deadbolts and deep-screwed strike plates.

Door being outswing considerations

Many people think that the exposed hinge pins on outswing doors are a weak spot thieves can exploit. That may have been the case many years ago, but using high quality security style hinges addresses this concern. Tabs or studs on the hinges prevent the door panel from being removed even when the pins are popped out.

The tabs and studs are either integrated into the hinge leaves or can be retrofitted to old hinge models. And some hinges also have special threaded pins that resist extraction without a special tool. So with the hinge issue off the table, an outswing door is dramatically more secure than an inswing door.

Inswing doors are unfortunately a cinch to kick in even when deadbolts and deep-screwed strike plates are used. Outswing doors on the other hand are next to impossible to kick-in and unlikely to be yanked out on the strike side.

The main downside to outswing doors is availability. Local lumberyards generally do stock outswing frames, so they need to be ordered.