Entry point
The Sliding Glass Door
Anybody with a sliding patio door onto a garden, deck or balcony, particularly one fitted before the current century. It assumes an aluminum or vinyl framed slider with a hook latch. Hinged patio doors belong on the back door page instead.
What constrains the work
- On many homes this door is the second exit from the ground floor, so anything placed in the track is a decision about escape.
- The panel is mostly glass, and no fitting on this page changes that.
- Balcony sliders in apartment buildings are frequently covered by rules about what may be fixed to the frame.
Start with what costs nothing
These come before any purchase on this page, and on most doors they do more.
- Vacuum and clean the track — it improves the latch, the slide and the lift resistance at once.
- Adjust the rollers so the panel sits down properly in the track.
- Move anything standable or leverable off the patio.
- Close the blinds after dark, which costs nothing and removes the display.
Deter
Change what the place looks like to somebody deciding whether to bother.
A patio door that is screened from every direction is a patio door somebody can spend ten minutes at. Deterrence here is about sight lines from the house next door and from your own upstairs windows, and about not leaving the garden furnished with things to stand on.
Do first
- Close the blinds at night so the room is not a lit display of what is in it.
- Move garden furniture away from the door, particularly anything that can be used as a step or a lever.
- Trim planting that turns the patio into a private room from the outside as well as the inside.
Jobs that add this layer
- Place an Outdoor Camera — Drilling required, 1 to 2 hours per camera
Where hardware is genuinely needed
- Security Cameras — seeing what happened, and knowing where the footage lives
Detect
Know that something is happening while it is still happening.
Glass and movement, in a place where the household itself moves constantly. This is the hardest layer to get useful on a patio door, because the false alarm rate from pets, curtains and the household using the door is what kills it.
Do first
- Work out whether a camera indoors covering the patio door is more useful than one outside covering the garden. Often it is.
- Set any indoor camera to be off when the household is home, so the alerting means something when it fires.
- Talk to everybody in the house before pointing a camera at a room they live in.
Jobs that add this layer
- Place an Indoor Camera — No tools, 20 minutes, renter safe
Where hardware is genuinely needed
- Security Cameras — seeing what happened, and knowing where the footage lives
Delay
Make the opening take longer and louder to get through than it looks.
Three separate things: the latch that holds the panel closed, the track that stops it sliding, and the vertical clearance that lets it lift out. Hardware helps with the first two. The third is usually a roller adjustment, and it is the one people never check.
Do first
- Lift the closed panel upward and see how far it rises. If it rises significantly, that is the weakness, not the latch.
- Vacuum the track. A panel riding on grit sits high, latches badly and lifts easily, and this fixes all three for nothing.
- Look at how far the latch hook actually engages the keeper. Many are adjustable and have drifted out of alignment.
Jobs that add this layer
- Secure a Sliding Door Track — Basic tools, 30 minutes, renter safe
- Fit Window Stops Without Blocking Escape — Basic tools, 20 minutes for the survey, 5 minutes per window, renter safe
Where hardware is genuinely needed
- Window Locks & Stops — limiting how far a window opens without trapping anyone
- Door Reinforcement Locks & Bars — buying time at the door, without blocking the way out
Document
Keep a record that still exists when somebody asks for it.
A patio door usually faces a garden with no lighting and a bright sky behind it in the afternoon. Both of those make it one of the least forgiving camera placements on a house.
Do first
- Check the camera view at the time of day the sun is lowest behind it, not at midday.
- Prefer an angle down the side of the house over one looking straight out from the door.
- Decide storage before purchase, because it is the one thing a camera cannot change later.
Jobs that add this layer
- Choose Local or Cloud Storage — No tools, 30 minutes of thinking, before you buy anything, renter safe
- Place an Outdoor Camera — Drilling required, 1 to 2 hours per camera
Where hardware is genuinely needed
- Security Cameras — seeing what happened, and knowing where the footage lives