Security Screens Are a Really Good Idea. Here’s Why.
I, of course, have these security screens and security doors on my home and I love them. Absolutely love them. There was a time when I had nothing, and then there’s a time when I have them. The sense of peace is really night and day. It’s indescribable. For all of our clients, we put them on there, no one ever says, “Take them down.” What they all say is, “I wish we had them sooner and I wish everyone could have them.”
So these are really, really strong screens. I love that there’s a big view from the inside out. So if I’m on the inside, I’ve got the screen locked, I keep my door open all day long. I can do the same with my windows. Keep them open all day long. Screens are locked and no one’s getting in there. And this is super strong. So I’m going to just like throw my body against this and then I’ll kick it a few times. That’s pretty solid. I think the neighbors are going to come running up here, which is a good thing, right? We want the neighbors to help watch what’s going on.
Obviously I’ve banged on this a few times. There’s only dirt on here. Nothing has failed. This wire is hurricane category 4. Each screen, each door is rated hurricane category 4. The wire itself comes from the oil industry. You have these huge pipes where they’re pushing all this sludge through there, oil, dirt, rocks, and they need something to filter it out. And it’s exactly this stainless steel mesh that’s used. We adopt it for screens in severe weather conditions, and we’ve adopted it here to prevent break-ins.
So these are the doors. We make them all shapes and sizes. This one is here in inset mount, which means we can put it in between build-outs like this. So that fits nice and snug in there. Nice and neat. Each of these opens. There’s an egress latch on the inside. It’s ADA compliant, anyone, even young kids, elderly, can flip that switch and get out in the event of emergency. So each screen is hinged. There’s a hinge on the vertical side over there. Flip the switch, push this open, it opens like a car door. It’s great for getting out if you ever have an emergency, but it’s also great for cleaning the other side of the window.
From the inside of the home, I want to show you how the egress latch works. First, notice you can see out very clearly. There’s no issue. Nice thing about these screens is it does reduce 65% of the thermal energy coming into the home. So you’ll see a savings in your AC costs. But the thing I like most is our intellectual property. This is a ADA compliant latch. The handle itself is fire rated. So if the whole house is on fire, you don’t want the handle to melt. And it’s ADA compliant, meaning it takes only five, six pounds of pressure. So easily operated by children, adults and elderly.
So I lock it up like that. If I need to get out, I just flip the switch and I push, the whole screen opens up. It goes all the way out. The whole screen goes all the way out and I can get out very easily in the event of a fire.
It’s also great for washing these windows. So whenever you wash all the windows on the outside of the home, you just open the screen, wash them, and then lock them back up again.
So from the inside here of my home, the security door we keep locked all the time. We keep this door open when the weather’s, nice day or night. I can even go run errands, keep this door open, and the security door locked. No one’s coming in there. I like that you can look out and you can see very clearly what’s out there. The thing I like about this door in particular is the three-bolt locking mechanism. So one turn of this knob and all three kind of parrot beaks here lock into this frame for superior protection. And this lock right here is accessible to youngsters. We want them to be able to get out if they need to.
Some firms sell three-point locks, but you have to reach up here to get it. And young kids, short people can’t do that. They can’t reach up there. If that door is locked, they’re not going to be able to get out. And some companies sell a three-point locking door, but when you leave for the day, it doesn’t lock all three. It only locks the middle one. But ours is a true three-point locking mechanism. If you just turn this, I’ve locked one, two, three, simultaneously. And when I want to get out, I turn it, and boom, I’m out. One of my favorites are these doors here. You can make them any color. We can do any powder coat color for the frame, any powder coat color for the wire, for the mesh.
The sliders are my absolute favorite. This is a patio slider we have in our bedroom. We make them for French doors and this is a French door, but we just put a slider on the outside because, hey, it works just as well. The thing I love most about this is we can keep these doors open all day, all night, and this locked, and not have to worry about anyone getting it. So these sliders, these two panels, both of them move. So you can move this other one over and wipe the glass on this side. Both panels are locked into the frame, so someone can’t try to pull these panels out of the frames. They’re locked in at the top and locked in at the bottom.
This mechanism right here, keeps everything in place. So when I want to lock up for the day, it’s like that when I want to unlock. Maybe I want to go outside. This U-lock clamps both top and bottom and I can go out. See how bright it is out there. And I don’t know if you can tell, but it’s really easy to see outside. There’s absolutely no problem looking outside. So I want to lock it up, it’s like this. I want to unlock it, it’s just like that.
