When buying external doors, don’t forget to make sure the locks you are going to use, either the old locks or newly bought locks, are up to the job, this means not just that they will provide adequate security but that they comply to your insurance requirements.

It is of vital importance to have the right lock(s) fitted to your external doors, as opposed to internal doors, in order to comply to UK insurance requirements. This standard is known as the BS 3621 standard, (latest standard BS 3621:2007+A1:2009).

If you have bought UPV doors then the types of locks need to comply to UK insurance will be different and will be described latter in this article.

BS 3621 type of lock should be fitted to the final exit door (normal your front door is your final exit door), BS 3621 locks should also be fitted to all external door and can include doors that are in fact inside your home, such as doors to an attached garage. External door are defined as an outside door or a door that leads to an area that can not be made secure.

There are two types of locks than can comply to the above standard, these are, mortice locks or rim locks. To comply with the standard they will both be 5 lever locks and also be deadlocks.

Mortice locks fit into a slot in the edge of the door, while Rim locks fit on one face of the door, both types of lock must carry to the BS3621 Kitemark.

If you cannot fit a BS 3621 locks to an external door (not your final exit door which must have a BS 3621 lock) then you can use any mortice deadlock or rim deadlock with either two mortice rack bolts fitted internally top and bottom or two surface mounted key-operated security bolts fitted internally top and bottom. Please confirm this with your actual insurer.

For UPV door, which for obvious reasons can not have mortice or rim lock fitted after manufacture, these doors must have a multi-point locking system or an in-built mortice deadlock.

Your UPV doors should come with one or more types of locking mechanisms, these are: Hook, deadbolt, roller cam, mushroom cam, finger bolt, center latch, anti lift pin and hook.

Please remember that all insurers are different and may have different requirements to comply with their terms and condition, so do check with your individual insurance company before fitting any locks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 10:48 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed.