In this audio podcast The Handyguys discuss how to upgrade the entry doors in your house, with a Door Devil™, for increased security and then discuss a flowchart for determining if DIY projects are right for you.

Door Security

The Handyguys have discussed home security in the past but it usually involves systems that alert the homeowner or the police when there is a break-in. The device we talk about on this podcast designed to deter the bad guys from gaining entrance in the first place. The product is the Door Devil™ and Paul and Brian try it on for size!

Top 3 DIY upgrades recommended by Police

• Adding a 2nd 2 cylinder Deadbolt
• Adding a Peephole
• Adding a door frame reinforcement device

In some areas break-ins are on the rise. Some people’s first reaction is to say “we need to get an alarm system”. Unfortunately many break-ins occur in houses that HAVE alarm systems. The thieves don’t care because they’d kick the door and run in/out in Blitzkrieg or NASCAR Pit crew style before the alarm company was even notified or police can respond. Thieves are in, out, and gone in 4 minutes or less. Certainly, the alarms provide incentive for them not to linger, but don’t provide the deterrent or defense necessary to protect the home. One common denominator to many such break-ins is ‘Kicking the Door’. The Door Devil™ addresses this and addresses it in a robust and secure way.

Installation

You can upgrade the security of your entry doors with a Door Devil™ very easily. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. No special tools are required. The image below outlines the basic steps for most installations. In the podcast we discuss some of the special circumstances that you may encounter. Make sure you listen to the podcast for our impressions as we discuss the product, its installation and considerations you will need to make before installing one (or more).

Click this image to see it larger. Make sure you check out the free shipping promotion for our listeners!

DIY Reality Check Flow Chart

Its time for a DIY reality check! Have you ever considered doing a DIY project but have been uncertain if you have the right skills, time, ambition, money or help to get it done? Run your project through the DIY Reality Check Flow flow chart. We can’t take credit for creating this but none the less we like it, a lot. In the podcast you can hear us explain the flow chart. We run the previously discussed Door Devil project through the flowchart and got the green light to go ahead with the project. We then try the steps with a couple other projects and got a couple “stops”.

So, before you begin that next, new, uncertain, DIY project try running a reality check. It could save you some grief down the road.

We would like to thank Rachel from http://heart-of-light.blogspot.com/ for providing the flowchart. Thanks.

Door Devil has provided The Handyguys their products mentioned in this podcast and have compensated us for our production time. However, the opinions of The Handyguys are entirely our own and we have not been paid to make positive comments.

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Home centers and door to door security sales

It seems that the Handyguys are in a bad mood this week due to terrible service at the local home center.  The poor service, coupled with traveling security salesmen offering “free installations,” created some cranky Handyguys.

First up are the stupid self check-out registers at the home center. Both Lowes and Home Depot the major US home center chains deserve blame. This cost cutting trend supposedly frees up personnel to help you load your car. But if you need help loading product in your car, you probably can’t navigate it through self checkout (let alone getting it on one of those scanners!). It is not as though the “displaced” cashiers are out on the floor helping you with that crazy plumbing problem in your house.

Brian shares a story about visiting a home center near his office with a simple purchase and NO human cashiers in sight.  The 4 self checkout stations were slowly processing the customers who had smaller goods to scan. The machines were scanning but with bill acceptors rejecting bills, machines balking about what is and isn’t in the bagging area, there was an increasingly long line. When Brian finally had his turn to scan his long boards, there was no one to help when the scanner began nagging about unexpected items  in the bagging area. All four stations had people grumbling, the lost attendant was grumbling and trying, unsuccessfully, to help someone out. The whole experience was so frustrating that Brian just left and went to a different home center! As a goodbye, the attendant yelled for Brian to put the items back on the shelves!

Well, wouldn’t you know, the other home center chain that Brian went to has just installed self checkout too!!! Wake up Home Depot and Lowes. Customer service will win you loyal customers. The Handyguys would welcome anyone from either chain who would like to come on the show and discuss improvements you are making that are beneficial to customers .

And what is Menards doing? We have never been to one.

Home security hassles

Both Paul and Brian were recently visited by door to door vendor pushing “Free” security systems. Every high pressure tactic in the book was attempted. The catch? About $45 per month. Paul did some research and the system can be bought and installed DIY for a couple hundred dollars. Monitoring can be had for under $10 a month for DIY systems.  Check out Paul’s recommendations for web sites where you can purchase these systems.

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The Handyguys provide an introduction to DIY home security, surveillance and automation.

The Handyguys give an overview of these technologies in this episode. We may dedicate a show to each of these topics later in the year. If you have any specific products that you would like discussed or have any questions on DIY home automation, home security or surveillance, please contact us. We want to deter the creepy looking creeps from invading our personal space with a cool DIY project.

First off – The Handyguys discuss DIY home security

There are two primary methods of doing DIY home security; wired and wireless. A wired system consists of hard wired sensors on doors, windows, smoke detectors, motion detectors, CO2 detectors, etc. Those wires come back to a main security panel. When an alarm is tripped it can notify a central monitoring service, your cell phone, email and/or sound an alarm. The main advantage of a wired system is that it is reliable and requires no batteries. In contrast, a wireless system is much easier to install and the prices are dropping but their entry cost is higher. Complete wireless and wired security packages are available from many different companies. Handyguy Paul is looking into Home Security Store as one possible vendor.

One wireless system that looks easy to install is the InGrid system  Like other security systems, InGrid provides central station monitoring and a cool web interface. We may discuss InGrid in detail on a future episode.

The Handyguys then discuss home surveillance

Home surveillance systems are a network of cameras. Two types of video monitoring include overt and covert installations. The covert systems are virtually invisible with cameras in things like clocks or teddy bears. The overt system is what Handyguy Paul is more interested in.  It includes an obvious camera hooked up to a PC based digital recorder. They are motion activated. Such a system can act as a deterrent and can also be used in identification of criminals and assist prosecution.  One DIY kit is from wylife.com The Handyguys Podcast is looking forward to discussing the wylife.com solution in a future episode. If our listeners have a favorite DIY home surveillance system they want us to look into for our episode on home surveillance please let us know.

Lastly The Handyguys discuss home automation

How does home automation fit with home security and home automation? Home automation can traditionally do things like turn on and off lights, control HVAC, etc. Some home automation systems can interface with home security systems. The Handyguys ideally want to find an all in one system that can handle home automation, security and surveillance in one easy to use DIY package. One possible place to get everything needed may be smarthome.com Do any of our listeners have any other suggestions? Let us know.

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