Armored doors - types, characteristics and installation

What is an armored door?

An armored door is a door with a complex structure, which has a system of protection against burglary, fire and firearms. With the development of technology, door designs began to develop and be updated not only according to the principles of heat resistance and appearance, but mainly according to safety principles. Armored doors have become popular since the middle of the twentieth century, when, along with ordinary steel doors, separate armored doors appeared on the market, and everyone became aware of their multi-level security system.

But before you understand the nuances of the armored doors in more detail, you need to make some clarification. Often a consumer confuses an armored door with a burglar-proof. For answers to the question: "What is the difference?"We turned to the Moscow manufacturer of armored doors, to the ProfMaster company, where they explained the following to us:

“Indeed, it is necessary to distinguish between concepts, armored doors are most often ordered by organizations for installation in premises for storing weapons or drugs equivalent to narcotic drugs. In Russia, GOST is even provided with strict requirements for such doors, and the manufacturer is obliged to issue a certificate for such a door for presentation to inspection bodies.

If you need a reliable door to the apartment with high break-resistant characteristics, which is not so easy to open even for an experienced attacker, you should choose a burglar-resistant door, which is made of steel up to 4 mm thick. At ProfMaster, we also have a large line of such doors, including bulletproof ones.

At the very beginning, wealthy families and owners of financial institutions installed and operated the armored door. Gradually, such doors became available to all segments of the population. With the development of technology, breaking steel doors became easier and simpler, but the quality of the doors continued to improve constantly, the layers became denser, various combinations and complex designs were invented. The quality and stability of armored doors still affect their prices, which in turn depends on the materials used. Today, armored doors, thanks to their sophisticated system of protection against burglary and resistance to explosions and fires, act as a guarantor in security and the safety of property and people's lives.

What is the difference between steel and armored doors?

Indeed, the variety of choice of armored doors on the market today is impressive. However, how to make sure that you don’t make a mistake in choosing? How can a buyer be sure that he will not be sold an ordinary steel door, which is much cheaper, instead of the desired armored door? Sellers, at times, are unscrupulous, and for the same price as an armored door, they sell an ordinary steel door. But the difference in price is not small. To do this, you must first understand what is the difference between a steel door and an armored door.

So, let's start with the fact that in appearance a high-quality steel door may not differ from an armored door due to the identity of the finish. According to the standard, steel doors can be made of either one or two sheets of steel. Steel doors are also made of bent profile. Doors with a single layer of steel are easily opened, so it is not recommended to buy and install such a door. Double Layer Steel Doors often confused with an armored door, but a two-layer door is also very easy to crack. It is not equipped with additional stiffeners, which guarantee strength and burglar resistance.

An armored door is a door made of bent profile and has additional stiffeners in a wooden cloth, and weighs significantly heavier than a simple steel door. An armored door, as mentioned above, is much more expensive. It is important when buying a door to familiarize yourself with its passport, where all data on the door, on the materials used, on the degree of strength, etc. must be indicated.

Purpose of armored doors

Doors from ancient times are designed to prevent unwanted, unauthorized persons from entering the personal space of the owners of the house or any other room. Today, an armored door protects not only from the penetration of strangers, but also from the cold, thanks to its heat-insulating design. Thanks to special gaskets, this door also has an excellent soundproof indicator. Thus, the armored door is an obstacle to the penetration of cold and unwanted noise from the corridor and the street. In a high crime rate in the modern world, such a door will become the guarantor of security, reliability and confidence that your property will remain safe and sound due to the additional strengthening of the protective layers and mechanisms. Since the most vulnerable places for hacking are door hinges, crossbar and lock, it is precisely these places in the armored doors that undergo additional reinforcement.

Armored Door Design

Doors according to their design are classified as follows:

• Standard doors
• Bivalve
• Arched
• Tricuspid
• With top or side transoms
• Glazed doors
• With several combinations of the above options

The frame of an armored door is its most important element. It can be made from metal profiles such as bent profile, channel, corner, etc.. As practice shows, the frame made of their bent profile is the most reliable and durable.

The main element of the door is the door leaf, which is two steel plates firmly connected to each other. Their perfect durability and impenetrable protection are ensured by the fact that these steel plates fixed by hard ribs. The thicker the steel plates, the heavier the door, which makes it strong and reliable.

Locks play one of the most important roles in armored doors. The number of locks can be from two to three or more, depending on the wishes of the customer or buyer. Locks, as a rule, must comply with security requirements and have maximum breaking resistance. Most armored doors have only two locks of level and cylinder type, which in turn have a huge number of variations of secrecy. Properly installed and high-quality crossbars or pins also play an important role in ensuring safety.

Classification of armored doors

Armored doors come in various forms. They are classified on the basis of safety and tamper resistance. Installing an armored door will not be effective and meaningless if it does not meet the safety requirements of your home, apartment, cottage, office, etc.In addition to the fact that armored doors are usually divided into metal and bulletproof, they are also divided into 4 main classes according to the principle of burglar resistance.

1. First class door, this is the door that the specialist able to crack using just a few simple tools (crowbar, chisel) using the physical strength of two or three people. The door leaf has a thickness of about 20 mm.
2. Second class door characterized by the fact that the specialist is not able to open it as easily as a first-class door. For hacking, he will need to apply electric cutting tools such as the Bulgarian or drill with power from 300 to 500W. The thickness of its canvas is not more than 80 mm.
3. Third class door hacking is possible only by using devices with a power of at least 2000W. The thickness of the steel door leaf of the third class is at least 120 mm.
4. Fourth-class door It is bulletproof, therefore, it is the most reliable of all existing armored doors. Her canvas is made of very thick steel layercontains titanium particles and impenetrable glass. To break into such a door will need a special powerful technique and too much time. The reason that an attempt to break into a door of such complexity will undoubtedly attract attention, the probability of opening it seems to us very, very small.

It should be noted that there is a fifth-class armored door, which is used mainly in bank vaults and can weigh at least two tons.

Performance characteristics

Three classes of armored doors are distinguished by the level of complexity and security - these are expensive doors, doors of the middle class and economy class. As we already know, the armored door is different from the usual metal doors the special complexity of its design, a large number of additional burglar-resistant mechanisms, explosion resistance and other useful qualities.

An armored door can withstand dynamic and static pressure. Thanks to established several locks with enhanced secrecy, together with a complex locking system with 18-mm crossbars, opening the locks seems incredible. Security doors of all classes have the ability to insulate and soundproof. Usually how much thicker steel sheet, the door to breakings and mechanical damages is so steady. Armored doors as well as other types of doors are additionally equipped peephole and door chain.

Armored doors - design and finishes

The variety in the market of armored doors is impressive and surprising with its pricing, quality of materials, design and style of decoration. The design of the security door should match the taste preferences of the owners. If the buyer does not find the door in the stores or catalogs with the preferred design or color, then fortunately he can order it at any good factory or workshop where they make armored doors.

Very popular input armored doors with vinyl leather trim with various fillers. Vinyl leather can cover both the inside and the outside of the armored door. Vinyl artificial leathers come in many forms and qualities. For decoration of an armored door, haberdashery leather (a type of vinyl leather) seems to be the best option. It has elasticity and good durability, resistant to temperature changes, in the absence of mechanical impact does not deteriorate over the years and is very affordable.

Security doors are pretty common with laminate claddingwhich are made by pressing. Four layers are used in this process. The first layer is water-resistant paper, the second layer is chipboard, which provides good quality and guarantees long-term operation of the coating.Next is the decorative finish, the design of which remains with the designer or the owners. The last layer is a film that gives gloss, shine and durability to the finish.

MDF doors belong to the doors of the elite class and are one of the most affordable among other types of this class. Security doors with MDF trim are strong enough. MDF is much more durable compared to other wood coatings.

Doors decorated with oak or mahogany are much more expensive, despite the fact that the tree undergoes deformation and decay over time. Fine patterns are often carved on them, which give an idea of ​​the high social status of the owner.

Locks for armored doors

More than 60% burglar resistance of an armored door depends on the quality of the door lock. Today, most doors have been said to have two types of locks: level and cylindrical. It is generally accepted that for greater efficiency it is necessary that the level lock is of foreign manufacture, and the cylindrical lock is domestic. According to experts, this will be safer, and attackers will be busy for a very long time with the process of opening the castle until they are spotted. For a higher degree of security, you need to choose a lock with a large number of massive crossbars which makes it difficult to saw.

A special anchor system will not allow to open the door even if intruders disconnect the door from the hinges, due to the fact that metal pins when lockedtightly fixed in the holes allotted to them on the box.

Installation of armored doors

Basically, installing armored doors is the responsibility of the seller or door manufacturer. However, often for installation, the buyer has to pay a considerable amount of money. In order to save money, it is best to install the door yourself, while taking advantage of the help of family members, neighbors or friends, because an armored door is a rather heavy thing.

It should be remembered that regardless of the quality and price of the armored door, any attacker can simply remove the door from the hinges or remove it with the box if the door was previously poorly installed and not fastened due to negligence and negligence in work.

Before buying a door you must measure doorway and only in accordance with the available sizes, select and buy the necessary door. If the door was purchased before the measurements or there were errors during the measurement and the dimensions do not match, you must either expand the opening with hammer drillor narrow the opening, depending on the situation.

The following tools and materials are required during the installation of the door:

• Bulgarian
• hammer
• drill
• level
• roulette
• plumb
• wooden wedges
• anchor fasteners
• mounting foam

First step - you need to insert a box of a new door into the finished doorway and carefully align it from all sides. The fixed door frame is fixed with wooden wedges, then the object is checked for accuracy and evenness by the building level.

Second step - a drill or punch on the wall, where the points for fastening are already marked, holes are made. Then, steel rods are inserted into the holes made, the length of which should be from 10 to 15 cm. The rods are thoroughly driven inside. Instead, you can use special anchor fasteners.

Third step - you need to check how correctly the door closes or opens, and whether all the door functions are performed without any interference.

Fourth step - this is foaming the door. In order not to stain the door with foam, it is necessary to cover the door with something, for example, ordinary rags or plastic wrap. Foam tends to harden quickly on a damp surface, so you can slightly moisten the surface where the foam will be applied.After the foam cools down, you can proceed to close all the “holes” and proceed to install decorative door linings.

However, for all this, for the sake of its own safety, for the safety of its property and family, it is best to contact specialists to install an armored door, since this process requires due attention and extreme caution, as further reliable operation of the product depends on this.