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OAKLAND — Host, Sarah Rutan: As your home’s first line of security, you’ll want to make sure your exterior doors are properly reinforced against break-ins. Today we’re in Oakland with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Randy Reed of Reed Brothers Security to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Randy Reed: Okay, what I’m going to talk about is how to harden your door against break-ins. And, the primary form of break-in is a kick-in where someone goes to the outside of your door and kicks the door in.

The reason they’re able to do that – well first of all, here’s my display. I have a door, a door jam, and the stud wall surrounding it. On a normal door where you have a deadbolt, you’d have a strike plate this size. It’s only two inches long, and it’s held in by half inch screws. So, if they kick the door in, all they have to do is kick in a little bit of door jam. If you’ll notice it’s only half an inch thick. That will then fly across the room, the door flies open, they shut the door, no visible means of entry from the outside. What you need to do is put an eighteen inch door strike plate on here using three and a half inch number nine deck screws that go through the strike plate, the door jam, the shim space, and the double studs in the wall. Now they’re forced to kick in eighteen inches of double studs. That’s not going to happen.

The next thing is – once you have a good deadbolt installed – is to make sure that the edge of the door is reinforced. Where you have a one inch bore through the edge of the door, you have to reinforce the wood where it’s only three eighths of an inch think. You have two plates – it’s called a door edge stiffener. It’s held on to the door with two binder bolts and sandwiches the door.

Lastly, you need to protect the hinge side of the door. You need to make sure you have a couple of things. That you have a four screw hole pattern on your hinges, and that you have three hinges on the door. If you only have a three screw hold pattern, replace your hinges. We recommend a minimum of a four by four – four inch by four inch hinge. You want to replace the screws in the center of the door – which are three quarter inch screws – with three and a half inch number nine deck screws that are hardened so that you securely attach the hinges three and a half inches into the door. And, on the door jam, do the same thing with the two screw holes closest to the door stop. You want to make sure that those three quarter inch screws are all replaced with three and a half inch number nine screws. That way they go through the door jam, the air gap, and into the double studs, and now you have securely attached your door and jam to the wall so it cannot be easily kicked in.

Okay, the final issues you should be concerned about when you’re making sure your door is resistance to kicks is you want to make sure you have solid wood door that’s one and three quarter inches thick, not one and three eighths. If you have a one and three eighth inch door, upgrade it to a one and three quarter, and it needs to be solid.

Next, you want to make sure that the quality of your lock is decent. These all look the same, but they’re completely different. This is a grade one, a grade two, and a grade three. A grade three lock is only for use on interior doors. It’s made out of pot metal, it’s hollow, and you can break it off the door with a hammer. Hit it at 12:00 and it falls off the door. A grade two and a grade one are actually tested by BHMA – which is Building Hardware Manufacturers Association – and rated for two kicks at sixty pounds, two kicks at ninety pounds, two kicks at a hundred and twenty pounds, and then for grade one they add two more blows at a hundred and fifty. A grade three is only rated for sixty and ninety.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.info.

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OAKLAND — Host, Sarah Rutan: You might assume that one safe is as secure as the next, but to ensure the safety of your valuables, it’s important to choose one that provides maximum protection. To learn more, we’re in Oakland with Ron Reed of Reed Brothers Security, speaking on behalf of Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Randy Reed.

Ron Reed: What a typical consumer needs to know about a safe that they might find, say, at a big-box store, is that most of those will be very lightweight units that are made out of a special kind of a insulation, and it’s covered with sheet metal. The special insulation gives off steam if you heat it up, and that steam keeps everything cool inside the safe.

However, it’s totally inappropriate to put anything of real value in there because it can easily be pried open with a small screwdriver or a crowbar. The safe is usually covered in very thin sheet metal or plastic that will give way and tear or break if someone tries to pry it open.

Another thing you need to know about any safe that you’d like to be there when you get home is that it needs to be bolted down. A insurance industry feels a safe is totally portable if it doesn’t way at least seven hundred and fifty pounds, or it’s bolted down. Most safes come with a hole in it to – that’s already there – to bolt it down. If it doesn’t, you need to drill your own holes because it’s absolutely essential.

Another thing you might want to consider is buying a safe with an electronic lock on it. Electronic locks are quite secure. They’re just as secure as mechanical ones, but they’re much easier to use. And because they’re much easier to use, people are more likely to use them.

People tend to have a mental block against dialing it four times to the left, and three times to the right, two times to the left, and like that, to get a mechanical safe open. Whereas, they feel more comfortable punching in a really brief number to open a safe. And, if you’ve got something that’s easy to use, turns out you’re much more likely to use it, and why would you have it if you weren’t going to plan to use it all the time.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.info.

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OAKLAND — Host, Sarah Rutan: Thanks to innovations in security technology, it’s now possible for home and business owners to control their security systems via their mobile phones. To learn more, we’re in Oakland with Mike Salk of Reed Brothers Security, speaking on behalf of Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Randy Reed.

Mike Salk: I think we can all agree that the pace of life has increased significantly lately. I found an application here that adds to the quality of life and peace of mind. It’s a remote application to control your home or business alarm system from your phone.

So, you leave the house in the morning busy, and your mind is occupied with other things. You can’t remember whether you armed the system or not . You don’t have to turn around and go back home. You simply pick up your device, log in, and find that it was disarmed, and you arm it remotely. The system can be armed and disarmed remotely from the device simply with the push of a button.

So, if you have a contractor coming to do work, instead of giving him the key, have him call when he gets to you home, and you push the disarm button. Have him do his work, when he calls you and says he’s finished, you go ahead and arm the system for him. No keys, no alarm codes.

It can also control things like your front door lock. If you need to lock the door because you may have forgot to lock it, or the kids left for school and forgot to lock it, you simply push the lock button. It sends a signal to the lock, and the lock is now locked. You can control your thermostat – turning the temperature up or down – and you can control lighting simply with the push of a button from anywhere in the world.

In addition to controlling your devices, you can also check your event history in your alarm system. This will tell you who locked and unlocked the door, who turned the alarm on and off, and what caused the alarm. It will be particularly useful if you get a call from the central station telling you had an alarm condition at your home or your business. You simply log on to your app, and then you can make the decision as to whether you want the police dispatched or not. I think you’ll agree that this will add peace of mind and a quality of life.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.info.