How To Reinforce a Security Door with Glass

Glass entryway doors serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. They add to the curb appeal of businesses, allow high natural light transmission, and provide views of the outdoors in storefronts and commercial facilities. But glass doors are also an extremely vulnerable point in any building’s security. 

Any commercial glass door should, at the very least, be strong enough to withstand forced entry attempts, which in turn provides protection against vandalism, burglary, smash-and-grab theft, rioting and looting, storm damage, and even active threats.

Unfortunately, most standard-issue commercial glass entryway doors are not up to the task of protecting your business from a determined intruder looking to gain unauthorized entry to your property. 

Even strengthened tempered glass, the most common commercial entryway door glass, easily shatters upon impact — it’s designed to shatter safely to mitigate broken glass hazards.

Luckily, there are ways you can reinforce commercial glass doors without breaking the bank. Using the right security glazing solutions, you can turn almost any run-of-the-mill commercial glass entryway door into a security door with glass.

How To Reinforce a Door if It Has Glass Panels: Glass Security Door Retrofits and Conversions

If a door has any glass components, it doesn’t matter how strong its frames, locks, and hinges are. Standard door glass can be easily shattered, whether it’s by an intentional blow, flying storm debris, or an accidental impact.

During a forced entry attempt, all it takes is one or two blows from a sledgehammer, a pry bar, a brick, or any other heavy object to shatter the glass, allowing the intruders to reach through and open the door from the inside or simply walk right in through the shattered glass door.

That’s why, in order to secure your property against forced entry, you must protect door glass by placing some type of physical barrier over it or by replacing the existing glass with forced entry-resistant security glazing, such as ArmorPlast® or Riot Glass®.

Traditional door glass security solutions include things like bars, scissor gates, and shutters. However, while these types of solutions are effective for security, many cities, landlords, and specialty brands do not want such products visible in the storefront.

Additionally, some of these glass door security solutions, like roll-down shutters, only provide after hours security, protecting the glass from impacts only when the business is closed and the shutters are rolled down and locked into place.

ArmorPlast Retrofit Security Glazing for Glass Doors

For most businesses and commercial facilities, it’s ideal to reinforce door glass without significantly altering its appearance. One way to do so is to apply retrofit security glazing right on top of the existing glass.

These retrofit security glazing solutions can be fitted into or onto many existing commercial door framing systems, creating a virtually unbreakable barrier over the door glass.

For example, ArmorPlast AP25 is a containment-grade, polycarbonate-based security glazing solution that provides a glass-like surface hardness and appearance, but has the virtually unbreakable strength of polycarbonate. 

Even forced entry attempts by the most determined would-be intruders will bounce right off of these glazing shields.

In addition to turning glass entryway doors into security doors with glass, AP25 can be retrofitted into or onto storefront windows, protecting your entire storefront from threats including forced entry, burglary, smash-and-grab theft, rioting and looting, and more. 

This makes AP25 an ideal choice for retail store applications, where there may be a large number of display windows in addition to glass entryway doors.

Key Takeaways:

• Enhance door glass security with discreet retrofit security glazing.
• ArmorPlast AP25: polycarbonate strength with glass-like appearance.
• Creates an almost unbreakable barrier over door glass.
• Guards against forced entry, burglary, and other threats.
• Ideal for retail stores with glass entry doors and display windows.

Riot Glass Unbreakable Security Door with Glass Conversions

In some cases, you may not be able to retrofit security glazing on top of the existing glass in a glass entryway door, or you may want to change the appearance of your glass entryway door in addition to turning it into a security door with glass. 

For example, some all-glass entryway doors only have very minimal top and bottom rails holding them in place, so there isn’t enough framing to fix retrofittable framing adapters to.

In these types of scenarios, or if you want to give your glass entryway door a secure contemporary facelift, we recommend a Riot Glass unbreakable door conversion.

These door conversions involve replacing the existing glass doors with an entire conversion unit, consisting of ArmorPlast Gen II Series door conversion framing and ArmorPlast AP75 bullet-resistant security glazing infills with a UL 752 Level 1 ballistic resistance rating.

Since these unbreakable glass doors can also stop bullets, they’re ideal for when you want a higher level of active threat protection, such as in schools, government buildings, religious facilities, corporate offices, and other more high-risk environments.

Key Takeaways:

• Retrofitting may be impossible for some glass entryway doors.
• Minimal framing can hinder the use of retrofittable framing adapters.
• Riot Glass unbreakable door conversions work even for all-glass doors.
• Conversion units replace doors with ArmorPlast Gen II Series framing and AP75 infills.
• Offers UL 752 Level 1 ballistic resistance for active threat protection.
• Ideal for high-risk environments like schools, government buildings, and offices.

How To Reinforce a Door: Additional Entryway Door Security Tips

While the glass is the most vulnerable component of most commercial entryway doors, there are other ways bad guys can force entry, including picking door locks or kicking doors in. So, after you ensure the glass is protected, consider revising these other components.

Reinforcing Door Frames, Locks, and Hinges

When it comes to reinforcing any type of door from being dislodged by high-force impacts or tampering, there are a few different security upgrades you can make:

• Deadbolts
• Smart locks
• Security pins
• Long screws
• Metal security framing

Deadbolts

One of the first things you should look at upgrading when you’re reinforcing a door is its locking mechanism. 

If your door doesn’t already have a deadbolt, installing one is a quick and easy way to make it more secure. Deadbolts go further into the door frame than basic locks, thus making the door harder to jimmy or kick open.

Security Pins and Smart Locks

Another way to make your door lock harder to pick is to add security pins inside the locking mechanism. 

Alternatively, consider replacing your door lock with a smart lock, i.e., a lock that can only be opened with an access code of some type (usually a PIN number, a password, or biometrics). Smart locks are the most secure locks — they can’t be picked using traditional methods.

Screws

When you’re reinforcing a door lock, you should also take a look at the screws that hold the lock’s latch onto the door. In many entryway doors, the screws may be only 1” long. Replace them with 3” screws to strengthen the lock latch and make forced entry harder.

While you’re at it, replace any screws holding the door hinges in place with longer screws as well. This can help prevent a would-be intruder from kicking the door off its hinges.

Security Door Framing

Finally, it doesn’t matter how strong your entry door is if it has a weak framing system. This mainly applies to doors on older buildings that have wood frames, which are not very impact resistant.

You can reinforce a door frame by replacing it completely with impact-resistant metal security framing. This type of framing cannot be easily dislodged by impacts or forced entry attempts.

If replacing the whole frame is not in your budget, you can reinforce a wood door frame by screwing galvanized steel over it with long screws to make it more impact resistant.

Don’t Wait To Reinforce Your Commercial Glass Doors

Any building’s most vulnerable points are its windows and doors, especially when the doors are made entirely of glass or contain large panes of glass.

Fortunately, security doors with glass are easily achievable with cost-effective solutions like retrofit ArmorPlast security glazing and Riot Glass unbreakable glass door conversion units.

Contact our security experts today for a complimentary consultation on our formidable glass entryway door security solutions.

Looking for residential protection? At Riot Glass, we specialize in protecting your property with our patented bullet-resistant system, designed specifically for aluminium framed windows. Not sure if Riot Glass is right for your home? Explore our FAQs.