Front Door Security Hardware: How to Read the Grades

A forced entry almost never breaks the door. It breaks the strike plate, the jamb behind it, or the lock — a point our comparisons of fiberglass vs. steel entry doors and wood vs. fiberglass entry doors both land on. This page picks up where those leave off: the hardware itself, and which of the numbers printed on it are worth anything.

Most of what gets said about door hardware is adjectives. “Heavy-duty.” “Maximum security.” “Commercial grade.” None of those is a measurement. What does exist: published grades, three dimensions worth confirming, and one building-code rule that rules out a lock homeowners ask for by name.

The short version: buy the security grade in the lock, then spend the rest of your attention on what the bolt lands in. A certified deadbolt anchored to half an inch of soft jamb trim still comes out of the wall.

Two Grades on the Same Lock

Pull up the spec panel on a mainstream deadbolt and you may find two gradings that look like a contradiction. Schlage's B60 single-cylinder deadbolt lists both: “ANSI/BHMA A156.40-2015 Grade AAA in Security, Durability and Finish” and “ANSI/BHMA A156.36-2010 Grade 1.” Neither is a typo, and neither is a conversion of the other.

The numeric Grade 1 / 2 / 3 scheme came out of commercial hardware standards. The letters are the residential program, written for a house. BHMA says its A156.40 standard “establishes requirements for residential deadbolts and deadlatches,” and that its companion A156.39 standard covers locksets and latches “generally used for single family homes and multifamily dwellings.” So a lock carrying no numeric grade is not second-rate; it may simply have been tested against the residential standard instead.

The Three Letters Are Three Separate Tests

“AAA” is not a super-grade. It is three letters for three independent categories, which BHMA names as Durability, Strength and Security, and Finish, stating directly that “locks shall meet all tests for their grade listing for each of the categories independently.” So a lock can be an A for finish and a B for security, and on a front door it is the security letter you are buying.

Schlage's grades explainer puts the scale as “a grade of ‘C’ is good, ‘B’ is better, and ‘A’ is best,” and summarizes what each category tests:

None of it has to be taken on faith. BHMA states that “participants in the BHMA Certification Program voluntarily submit a hardware product to independent laboratory testing,” and publishes a Certified Products Directory whose listings cover cycle, operational, strength, security and finish testing. If a grade appears on a box but not in the directory, that is worth a question.

The Bolt: One Inch, and the Numbers Around It

Three dimensions decide whether a deadbolt fits and works, and all three are published rather than buried in a catalog.

• Throw — one inch. Schlage's B60 features list a 1-inch deadbolt, ProVia's multi-point systems carry three one-inch deadbolts, and Texas's statutory definition of a keyed dead bolt includes a doorknob lock with “at least a one-inch throw.” An inch is what carries the bolt through the jamb to the framing behind it.
• Backset — 2-3/8 in. or 2-3/4 in. Door edge to center of bore. Schlage describes its universal deadbolts as fitting either; on a replacement, an existing bore locks you into one of the two.
• Door thickness. Schlage lists the B60 for doors from 1-3/8 in. (35 mm) to 1-7/8 in. (48 mm) — a property of the slab, and one more reason hardware belongs in the door conversation rather than a later trip to a store.

Schlage also publishes anti-drill plates and anti-pick pins on the B60. Useful, and honestly the least likely attack on a North Texas front door — which brings us to the part of the assembly nobody puts on a spec sheet.

The Weak Link Is What the Bolt Lands In

A one-inch bolt into a plate held by two three-quarter-inch screws is a one-inch bolt into nothing. The strike has to be anchored past the jamb and into framing, and the figure that does it turns up independently in two places. Schlage ships the B60 with an “integrated strike reinforcer with 3 in screws to help protect against forced entry.” Texas, defining the keyless bolting devices a landlord has to install, requires three case-hardened screws “at least three inches in length” for a drop-bolt device. Two unrelated sources landing on three inches is not a coincidence: that is about what it takes to cross the strike, the jamb and the shim gap and bite into the stud behind.

Three more things in the same category, none of them the lock:

• The lock block. On a fiberglass or steel door the bore is cut into a solid block inside the slab — the only part of the slab the lock is actually fastened to. Ask what it is made of.
• The frame reinforcement. ProVia publishes a “solid I-beam [that] runs full length of lock” on its multi-point systems. A continuous reinforcement spreads a kick along the whole lock stile instead of concentrating it at one strike.
• Shims and a plumb jamb. Unglamorous and decisive. A jamb fully supported where the strike lands has something rigid to resist against; one spanning an unshimmed gap flexes. One reason we install complete prehung units rather than swapping slabs.

Multi-Point Locks Do Two Jobs

A multi-point lock throws bolts at several heights from one handle motion. ProVia publishes the mechanics: “four latching points when door is locked; one latching point when door is unlocked,” plus an “Anti-Back Drive” feature that “prevents locking points from disengaging from the outside.” The security argument is obvious. The second job is the one homeowners notice daily: ProVia states the system “offers better door closure and sealing than single-point lock.” Engaging top and bottom pulls a tall slab tight against its weatherstripping across the whole height rather than only at the middle — the same compression mechanism behind our sliding patio door vs. French door comparison. Through a Texas summer, that matters as much as the grade does.

Two caveats. Not every handleset or multi-point system is offered in every swing or product line, one of the ordering constraints in our guide to door handing and inswing vs. outswing. And more engagement points still need something to engage — on an unreinforced jamb, a multi-point lock has simply moved the failure.

The Code Rule That Rules Out a Double-Keyed Deadbolt

Homeowners with glass beside the front door regularly ask for a deadbolt that takes a key on both sides, so an arm through a broken sidelite cannot reach a thumbturn. A reasonable instinct that runs into the residential code: Section R311.2 requires that “egress doors shall be readily openable from inside the dwelling without the use of a key or special knowledge or effort”. Every dwelling needs at least one such door, almost always the front door, and a double-cylinder deadbolt is a key requirement on the inside, in the dark, during the emergency the rule exists for.

Attack the reachable glass instead: laminated glazing in any lite within arm's reach of the lock holds together when broken rather than opening a hole, and a narrower or higher lite does the same job geometrically. Our guide to exterior door glass options covers lite fractions and how privacy glass is actually rated. A keypad or smart deadbolt is a third route, since the inside stays a thumbturn or lever. Code editions and amendments differ across the 24 DFW cities we serve — Plano, for instance, publishes its adopted building codes and ordinances — so confirm the adopted edition before planning around any code dimension.

Hinges, Viewers and the Rest of the Opening

Three smaller items finish the specification, and the first applies to some doors only.

• Hinge pins, on an outswing door only. Swing a door out and its hinge barrels and pins face the porch, so non-removable pins or security studs belong on that order. An inswing door — the North Texas default — keeps its hinges indoors and needs none of this.
• The door viewer. Texas's statutory definition is a useful spec even for an owner-occupied house: a peephole with a one-way lens providing “an angle view of not less than 160 degrees.” A narrow lens shows you the top of a head and nothing beside the door.
• Sidelites and transoms carry their own glazing spec, because they are separate units mulled to the frame — which is also why they change the size of the opening rather than the size of the door.

If the House Is a Rental, Texas Adds a List

An owner-occupied home treats all of this as a choice. A rental does not. Texas Property Code Section 92.153 requires a landlord — at the landlord’s expense, and without the tenant having to ask — to equip the dwelling with “a doorknob lock or keyed dead bolt on each exterior door” plus “a keyless bolting device and a door viewer on each exterior door of the dwelling.” That is three items per exterior door, not one, and the keyless device is defined as operable from the interior without a key — the same direction the egress rule points.

What else that statute puts on a replacement order, including the window and patio-door devices, is covered in our guide to rental and investment property window replacement in DFW. This is landlord-tenant law rather than building code, and it is not legal advice.

Five Lines That Put Security on the Quote

“Hardware included” describes nothing. Ask for these:

• The exact lock model, and its published grades. Make, model, and the grade in each category rather than the word “graded.”
• Single-point or multi-point, and how many engagement points. With the bolt throw stated.
• Strike plate type and screw length. Reinforced strike, screws reaching framing — in writing, because this is the line that is never there.
• Interior operation on the egress door. Thumbturn or lever, not a keyed cylinder.
• Hinge specification on any outswing door. Non-removable pins or security studs, named.

Our list of questions to ask your installer covers the rest of the paperwork.

How Bradley James Windows & Doors Approaches It

We are veteran-owned and owner-operated and we do not use subcontractors, so the person who measures your opening is the person who sets the strike and hangs the door. Entry doors we install come with multi-point locking hardware, and ProVia publishes that its entry doors are available with hardware from “Schlage, Trilennium, Hoppe, and EMTEK” — so the lock is a selection you make at the estimate. Two habits worth naming: the strike gets screws long enough to reach framing on every door we hang, and on any door serving as the home's egress door we confirm the interior side opens without a key. We do not offer glass-only, sash or repair-only services, so hardware is specified as part of a complete prehung unit rather than sold as a lock swap.

Browse our entry doors, French doors and storm doors, see the full range of door types we install, read the rest of our homeowner guides, or request a free estimate anywhere in the 24 DFW cities we serve.