Lock Strength for a small business

[EuropeanAmerican]

Hello All,
I am a novice when it comes to locks. I am also own a few small offices for my business. I have my offices in the US set up and they have been running fine for some time.

I am opening a European based office and I was wondering what are the best locks out there for a small business. I am willing to purchase a home-type locking system, but only because I do not want an industrial looking lock because I work in the financial sector and I have professional clients.

That being said, I am not looking for a fancy looking lock, but a very strong and very functional lock for my exterior facing doors. I need the maximum strength possible and I do realize the door frame is the weakest part.

So, any suggestions?

Thanks for your time.

[Squelchtone]

What country is your European office going to be in. Locks, doors, and frames in the UK are going to be dramatically different than locks, doors, and frames in let's say Poland.

If everyone in the country your office is in uses mortised lever locks such as the Era 5 you may want to go with what a local locksmith or handy man knows how to install. If you country uses euro profile cylinder inserts then you may want to choose a brand and model available by a local stockist unless you're going to fly it in from the USA.

Look into locks and brands that offer key copying protection by means of restricted key blanks that a local hardware store or shoe repair shop can't copy. This way if you have a contractor or landlord or employee at the foreign office, they aren't busy making copies of your keys. Also check into the lock bumping craze, it's a way of opening a lock using a specially cut blank. And if physical strength is a concern, look into euro cylinders that offer anti snapping technology, so someone can't just rip the lock out of the door.

I'm sure others will chime in with their advice soon, let us know any more details that you are comfortable sharing.

Squelchtone

[EuropeanAmerican]

My office is in Slovakia and we are a precious metals company and we have a vault offsite, but occasionally we have small amount of capital live cash, silver, and gold. We have it when customers want to pick up small amounts in person. Past that, I rather not release more details about the business.

To be honest, I do not know much about lock types in European Nations. But, I just checked the Mortised locks and the ones I have seen in my area are similar in design. They slide in through the slim portion of the door. Whereas a dead bolt lock in the US, would go through the front, back and side. The locks here have a larger, thin housing for the actual mechanism and the door handles of course go on the front and pack. They also have euro cylinders.

My questions are is it possible, or rather, is it common for doors to be purchased, which have been made to accept US style locks here in Europe or would that require some sort of customization?

My main concern is robbery, since there were attempts before to more than one office once criminals found out what our business does. The goal I have set in mind is actually making the office extremely difficult for someone to enter, even if they attempt to kick down the door or use a pry bar/crow bar to force the lock/door open. Even though we have a safe in the office, I of course still do not want unauthorized people in the office.

So I am guessing I should have a steel frame, steel door, but also a lock with anti bumping and anti snaping features. Are there other locks which have these features which also could withstand great amount of force like attempts and a kick down? Should I look at multiple locks?

Sorry for all of these questions, this is both interesting and a learning experience since I am new to European hardware.

Thanks again for your time.

[lockr]

Your best bet would probably to employ the services of a reputable security consultant (or two). While it's easy to give advice and offer suggestions here on the forums, it's very difficult to know exactly what sort of security challenges your particular installation has and as such there really isn't a subsitute for a professional inspecting your location in person. The only advice I can offer beyond that is to employ multiple layers of security, and respect the fact that no matter how secure you make something, it will never be 100% secure.

I'm not sure where I found the link to this article (probably here on the forums) but it just goes to demonstrate that no matter how secure something can appear to be, with enough incentive, money and time, thieves can and will find a way.

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds

[ARF-GEF]

Hi!

I think lockr gave a really good advice, check around the local locksmiths.
If your company works with diamonds how come it has no internal safety officer or something like that? He should have some advice...
Or if it doesn't maybe you should consider employing a real expert on security. (Many of us are actually experts and professional locksmiths, but many of us are just hobbyists.)
There are actually numerous similar threads around here. You should try searching for lock suggestion, which lock to choose and so on.
I had a post about lock certifications, maybe you should check that out, because insurers are pesky everywhere and in Europe they have their own system of lock classification. (UL rating is rarely if ever used here.)
By the way, your insurer might give you some directions too. As can local police and even your alarm company. Maybe you should consider getting in connection with them.

But back to the locks: I have seen numerous Keso locks in high security places like banks or jewelers. I personally rather like them,(the more I learn about them) since they have excellent manufacturing quality although here on this forum they don't really seem to be as highly regarded. Or at least people rarely opine about them. Or at least I couldn't really find out why, altough I tried. So not sure why, possibly because they might be kinda susceptible to bumping, and they can be picked, but generally they are very good locks. IMHO they are especially hard to drill,(that being a somewhat widely used method of entry here in eastern europe) a huge part of them can be nickel chrome alloy, which is what usually small anti drill parts are made of in other locks. (Check out the option when ordering them they have several different versions.) Picking is usually not really a huge threat. Whoever will have the expertise to pick a keso will probably get in anyways.

If you are worried about bumping (which you probably should be, its fast, not really loud and not particularly hard to do. Come to think about it, no idea why it isn't more common that it is.. Maybe time will change that.) you should also consider EVVA 3ks plus. Also a very nice lock, in the same price range as KESO 4000s omega. Be sure to check out all the options, some provide increased security. Maybe the keso offers better resistance to drilling and snapping while EVVA is better against picking and immune to bumping, but if anyone with more knowledge wishes to correct/amend me on these locks they are very welcome to do so!

Another lock to consider is the Assa- abloy Protec or the new even-harder-to-illegally-copy protec 2. They are somewhat cheaper than KESO and EVVA but Protec is pretty much a legend. Lately there are rumors about it being decoded or drilled though.
I guess if you choose any 2 of these, you should probably be ok. Bit I'm no professional, not even a real expert and this is only my personal opinion. You should definitely check out the local professional’s advice too!

So these are my top nominees, I hope others will add their favourites too.

That all being said, you should invest into a heavy security door, alarms, iron bars for the windows and safety foils. Remember: every lock can be opened, every safety measure can be bypassed it's only a matter of time and dedication and expertise. And security is always as strong as its weakest link.
So have fun choosing the locks!
Oh and one more advice: paranoia helps, but don't get carried away! Many people who ask about locks here get completely crazy about it.

I hope I could help.

[mhole]

Try and avoid importing US locks to Europe, or vice versa). You're making a rod for your own back, and the local locksmith will hate you when you loose keys and he has to try and change hardware he's never seen, and which isn't available in from any of his suppliers.

I have to deal with the fall out of architects sourcing hardware from continental europe for building projects, with no though given to local availability when it fails, or to whether it actually meets insurance spec' in the UK, and it makes what ought to be a simple job a PITA.

[ARF-GEF]

Just realised I forgot a few nice locks:
Dom Diamant for one. It has a pretty neat mechanism and the build quality is pretty high too.
It's pretty expensive though, but pretty much all of the high security lock are pricey.

If you can get them in Slovakia, the Bilocks are considered to be very secure too. Not as expensive, but pretty hard to get. (Which means it's rare so many burglars will have no idea of what it is exactly.)

As far as I heard Mul-t-lock MT5+ is also not bad, but honestly I know even less informations about that than about the other ones.
Mul-t-lock interactives used to have problems with the interactive parts getting stuck and making the lock inoperable in the past, maybe they improved the design since then.

(Oh and I have 2 questions: A. What exactly do you mean by industrial looking lock? B. B. What exactly do you mean by nothing fancy? Because I feel a bit of a contradiction in "nothing fancy" and "very strong and functional" As far as I know the very strong one are all pretty fancy in one way or other. At least in the materials used. If you mean nothing too expensive: Bilock is probably the cheapest. If you mean that you are looking for the most simple mechanism: I'd go with either Keso or the Bilock. But seriously, think it through: you are in the precious metal business and want nothing fancy as a lock for the office? Doesn't really sounds like a good plan to me. I would sure use a strong steel high security door with reinforced frame, reinforced hinges and multi point locking mechanism. And definitely more than one lock.)

One other thing you might consider if you really need something highly secure, is a second door with a "buzz-in" type of electronic lock. Creating a small but hard to breach area between 2 electrically controlled doors should make any attempt to storm the office during business hours complicated.

[EuropeanAmerican]

Hi All,
Thanks for all the feedback. I will definitely need time to look into this.

I don't have diamonds and I am not a jeweler. We have a small hidden safe in our offices and basically the policy is if it can't be seen it can't be found.

From a security perspective we don't want to hire new people. All of the employees, I know personally, and have known personally for a long time. I can't take a risk with one person who may or may not be dishonest. I may do this in the future, but, I don't want to have to tell a customer that something they purchased was stolen because then not only will the customer be upset or have a lack of security, my reputation will suffer.

We have a security system. In fact, my father and I used to sell security systems to restaurants and companies in that field. Our focus was on electronic systems, mostly, my experience was the network aspect of cameras. We mainly used a system which sent the video imaging to a remote site so that even if the cameras were destroyed, the data still remained. I use this same concept in my business today, but in my opinion, cameras are not as much a deterrent (in some cases they can be) as they are a tool to respond to crime with.

With regards to locks, I am not very familiar with lock picking or what is popular these days, but I will pick up some literature and look into all of your suggestions.

By, "nothing fancy" I mean, that some locks have an elegant look to them, some look like vault type locks. I don't care fore the look of the lock. I am only concerned about functionality.

By industrial lock, there are warehouse type door locks which have a huge handle that slides and locks into the wall or door frame. This is more or less a barricade in my opinion rather than a lock.

Back to security, overall I definitely agree that it should be a layered approach where locks aren't the main focus, but basically making many obstacles and so on.

thanks again, I will give some thought to this and do some more personal research and maybe come back with more questions, or maybe an answer with what I chose.

[ARF-GEF]

Hi,

I did not really mean to interfere in your company HR matters. It's completely up to you to decide when and who to take. It was just a suggestion.

IMO cameras are not as useful. Unless monitored real-time the intruders might just put a baseball cap on and it'll be hard to identify them. Maybe you should consider a more classical alarm system with motion/heat detectors and so on. But since you were in that business you probably know a lot more about that then I do.

The locks I have recommended are all standard cylinder locks. Nothing industrial or safe like about them. Basically if someone is not into locks he will have no idea whether or not you have a better than average lock. They integrate seamlessly into pretty much any standard European door with European locking mechanism.
These are really simple to use, they are actually just like the lock you have on pretty much any standard entrance door from the functionality perspective.
If you are looking for something particularly elegant I find the key of DOM Diamant to be something very much like a modern statue. (Fichet Bauche F3D is for me hands down the winner of the beauty contest. But the price is steep (~750 euros ) and it's hard to come by.)
If you combine any of these lock I think most burglars will have a hard time. Based on what I know they all are decent ones, but one again I'm still in the learning phase so definitely consult someone who is more experienced.
I wrote down my best advice but it might turn out to be false.

I think the best way to evaluate these locks is to contact the company and ask a few locksmiths. The internet can be helpful too, but remember: just because someone somewhere seems to open something real fast, that doesn't means that any burglar can. Many people here can do amazing things to a lock (not including me unfortunately), but an average burglar usually isn't half as good in picking.

It's hard to find any literature truly up-to-date. Models come and go and weaknesses for individual locks can turn up in a few years time.

[EuropeanAmerican]

No I didn't take it wrong. Don't worry.

I am not willing to spend the amount of money for heat and other sensors. This isn't a vault, only a small safe fore a very small amount of valuables.

Thanks for recommending those locks. What about impact? Like some ramming or kicking down/ open a door? I am sure the frame of the door would be part of a solution, but are there any kinds of locks I should be looking at in this kind of protection?

Thanks again!

[zeepia]

In europe it´s more common to have doors open outwards, not inwards. You just don´t rammer those so easily. Of course it then depends on the frame.
I don´t know how it´s in Slovakia, could be also opening inside.

I think here in Finland it´s the law that your out door must open outwards.
Therefore always laughing at television cops kicking doors in. Come here and try the same!

[ARF-GEF]

I you are worried about someone kicking in the door the lock is not the (only/main) answer. The thing to look for security door is a multi point locking mechanism. What that means is that you have a strong reinforced steel door which is hard to bypass with an axe for example and instead of normally locking in just one direction like standard doors it has slab of metal coming out of the body of the door into the frame.(preferably all 4 or with strong hinges :all 3 directions.) A steel reinforced frame and strong hinges are a must too.
It is actually kinda pointless to have any of the locks I recommended above with a simple door. I mean it's easier and faster to use a crowbar and pry open a standard door than to bypass an abloy protec for example.
To make the door thing a bit more clear here's a primitive drawing of 2 doors:

Normal door:
______
I I
-I I
I I
I I


Security door:

_I__I_
-I I-
I I
I I
-I I-
T T

(zeepia: I live in Europe too, but by us we usually have inwards opening doors. Though come to think of it outward opening does seem to be a lot more logical... But I'm not sure about Slovakia either. )

[zeepia]

I think it is a fire security issue, people must be able to rush out most easily when in real hurry... same goes with sauna door.

[lockr]

I think it is a fire security issue, people must be able to rush out most easily when in real hurry... same goes with sauna door.

Here in Canada, pretty much all residential doors open inwards, and most (if not all) business doors open outwards. Come to think of it, I can't seem to think of any commercial doors i've ever seen that open inwards.

I think the main reason residential doors open inwards is to conceal the hinges. I don't know if there's any part of the residential building code that requires them to open inwards, or if outward opening doors are permitted as well (not sure what kind of hinges would be used in this case).

[EuropeanAmerican]

Yep residential doors open inward.

My business door also happens to open inward.

With regards to the lock, what you are suggesting is something like a deadbolt, going into a steel frame?