Turn Your Home into a Fortress

There’s a scene in Bradley Garrett’s book Bunker that still haunts me. One of the residents of a survival complex starts talking out loud about what he’s going to do when civilization caves in on itself. He’s going to hit every family in the neighborhoods around his bunker. He’s going to kill them. He’s going to put their heads on pikes. He’s not going to spare women and children.

“Sorry not sorry,” he says. “It’s them or me.”

(I’m embellishing the dialogue.)

There’s another scene that stayed with me. At a local diner, one of the architects of a bunker community starts fantasizing about chaining up teenage girls in his safe room. Suffice to say, I’m not worried about my neighbors so much. They’re pretty easygoing. I’m worried about these guys. I’m worried about the MAGA survivalist militia one town over. They say they’re preparing to defend themselves. I think they’re preparing to do something else, and it’s not friendly.

There’s an old show called Doomsday Preppers that used to air on the National Geographic Channel. In one episode, a militia says they have zero plans to learn how to farm or harvest rainwater—or anything else. They’re stocking up on guns. They’re making their own plate armor. They’re getting ready to raid other homesteading communities and take all their stuff.

They’re very proud of it.

So…

Let’s face it, not everyone wants to build a community with you. As social collapse deepens, it won’t be enough to stock your pantry with dry goods. You’re going to need a way to protect yourself from the sinister ones.

While the wannabe survivalists are shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars on bunkers and military gear, you can do something far cheaper and vastly smarter. While you won’t be able to ward off an assault team, you can make it harder for the wannabes to cause you trouble.

Here’s what we did.

Put longer screws in your door

Most homebuilders use cheap, flimsy 3/4 inch screws to install your exterior doors. I’m not kidding. That’s exactly what we found in our door jambs when we started upgrading our hardware. These do practically nothing to stop an intruder from getting into your home. One or two swift kicks, and that’s it.

Any wannabe militia man can manage it…

It’s not exactly top secret. On the other hand, most people never really think about what’s holding their front door together. If you want to know how basic door security works, you can watch this slightly cheesy local news report. Summary: A local news reporter switched the cheap, flimsy factory screws in a strike plate with longer 3-inch ones. He had to kick the door more than 20 times to break it open. Even then, the strike plate didn’t rip out. The deadbolt did.

So, just replacing your screws provides a massive security upgrade.

It’s a simple fix.

Upgrade the strike plates

You can also upgrade the strike plates themselves. We replaced ours with a combination strike plate that covers the doorknob as well as the deadbolt. They distribute the load across the door jamb. Here’s what they look like:

You might have to do some chiseling to get the upgraded strike plates to fit. Don’t worry, it’s not that hard. You just need a wood chiseling set and a rubber mallet. It takes about 15-30 minutes per door. If you’re not sure how to go about it, YouTube has dozens of videos on how to do it.

If I can do it, so can you.

Upgrade the door hardware

Think about upgrading your doorknob and deadbolt if they haven’t been replaced in 15-20 years. Newer sets from nicer brands like Schlage come with longer installation screws as a default now. Get one with an ANSI/BHMA Security Grade 1. These doorknobs and deadbolts undergo rigorous testing for heavy use and blunt force attacks. They can withstand up to 360 lbs of direct force. They’re also more resistant to sawing, picking, and drilling attacks.

Install a door reinforcer

Next, you’ll want to think about protecting your doorknob and deadbolt. You can do that by installing a basic door reinforcer. Sometimes, they’re called door wraps. You can buy combination ones. They offer the most strength. If your door has nonstandard spacing between the doorknob and the deadbolt, you might have to buy the smaller separate ones. Either way, you’re making it much harder for someone to kick out your deadbolt.

Replace the hinge screws

Finally, replace the flimsy 3/4 inch screws in your hinges with 3-inch deck screws. Go with #10 flathead. Replace the screws one at a time so your door doesn’t fall off. That takes care of the last weak point.

Don’t forget the windows

If someone can’t kick your door down, they’re going to focus on the windows. Here’s where things get a little more expensive, but it’s still doable. You don’t have to replace your windows. You just have to get creative.

The same goes for doors with glass panels.

There’s no way we could afford to replace the doors on our back deck. They’ve got big glass panes in the middle, something an intruder could easily smash out. So we came up with a workaround:

Polycarbonate sheets.

It’s 200 times stronger than glass. You can order 1/4 inch polycarbonate panels online, and you can request pre-drilled holes. We sized ours to provide a 1.5-inch overlap over the glass, so we can mount it right onto the door. Do your measurements and calculate how many holes you’ll need. Aim for 5-6 inches between the holes, going around the perimeter. Try to keep the holes 3/4 inch from the outer edge.

We’re mounting our panel with #10 self-tapping metal roofing screws and washers. That means we needed 5/16 inch pre-drilled holes. We’re using 1/2 inch nylon spacers to hold the panel secure. The screws go through pre-drilled holes, then through the spacers, then into the door.

When we mount that panel to the inside of our door, bad guys can smash the glass. It won’t matter. Their blows will glance off the inner polycarbonate panel. It would take more than 1,500 lbs of force to get that off.

That solution works pretty well.

If you want something with less hassle, contact a company like QMI. They make security screens that fit over an entire window unit. They’ll manufacture the screens and ship them to you, along with instructions to install them yourself. They’re a good company with a good reputation.

The payoff

When you make these upgrades, you’re spending a few hundred bucks to transform your doors from an invitation into a true barrier. Various estimates from security experts put the total force resistance of this setup around 1,500-2,000 lbs. It would take an assault team with hydraulic door breachers or heavy sledgehammers to get in. Opportunistic predators won’t pose a threat to you anymore. They can stand outside all day, kicking and kicking. They’ll break their foot before they get inside your home to take your stuff. If nothing else, it gives you time to execute whatever other home defense plans you might have.

A few other things

If you want even more security, try something like dooricade or nightlock. These products have good reputations. Everything else I’ve seen has mixed reviews. Of course, you’re free to experiment.

Does all this sound paranoid?

Maybe you’re thinking these ideas sound paranoid.

Let’s think it through.

Over the last several months, we’ve seen countless articles and videos go viral telling everyone to fill their homes with food in preparation for famines and disasters. But we’ve seen virtually no attention on the other important aspects of survival, like water and sanitation—or defense. I’ve watched seasoned preppers fall back on recommendations for home security systems to keep bad guys away. Is a home security system going to stop a starving militia? Is that system going to function during a disaster followed by days of power outages?

Are those fake “beware of dog” signs going to deter someone who hasn’t eaten in three days, and getting desperate?

How good would you really feel having a home full of canned beans during a famine, knowing that anyone could just kick your front door in and take all your food? Even if you plan on sharing your stuff, there’s no guarantee that every person you run across is going to appreciate your altruistic spirit.

My family plans to share what we have, but we’re going to do it on our terms. We decide who to share with and how much.

It’s not an open buffet.

It can’t be.

More than just security

It took us a few days to upgrade the security on all of our doors. We did it ourselves. We bought the hardware. We installed it. In some cases, we even modified door reinforcers with dremels. I installed deadbolts myself from scratch, bore holes and everything. These are some sturdy doors now.

I’m going to be adding detailed instructions on how to do all of this in the next version of my survival guide, which you can download here. You can also make donations there to support it.

I’ve got more than secure doors and windows now. I have the skills to install and hang doors myself. These skills stack with the others my family has been building over the last year. The wannabe preppers and survivalists have it all backwards. They think guns are going to save them. They’re not. It’s just going to pit them against another group with bigger guns. It’s going to get them killed. You just have to stay out of the way while the jerks with guns kill each other.

In reality, the absolute best security plan in our dystopian future is knowing how to do a lot of different things. Even if you can’t physically do all those things, you can still teach them to someone else. When you know how to do things, how to grow food, how to harvest and filter water, how to install doors, how to make other people feel safe, then they’re not going to want to kill you.

They’re going to want to protect you.

That’s a real security plan.

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