Improving your Home?
Do It Yourself Home Security adds tremendous value and piece of mind....

With crime statistics increasing worldwide, my do it yourself home security guide will show you some of the best ways to protect your family, while at the same time improving the value of your home.

Apart from the valuables lost when someone breaks and enter, the feeling of violation of your personal space and the loss of safety one experiences, must be avoided at all cost.

If your do it yourself home security is planned and executed well, it adds an enormous amount of value to your home. This is especially true in a country like South Africa where we have a very high crime rate.

Effective home security is more than just an alarm system and burglar bars. It is all about putting together the best products in a system where you focus on specific aspects to secure your home, so that you have a safe haven from the outside world.

I firmly believe that as with most home improvement projects, it is best to take charge of the planning and design of your home security yourself.

Sometimes we may think someone is a “specialist” just because they do the job for a living, but experience has shown me that it is not always the case.

• Whose home is it anyway…..?
• Who is prepared to go the extra mile (or take that hour longer) so that the job is done perfectly?
• Only you…… it is your home, your castle, your “pondok” like we will say in Afrikaans.

Don't leave the safety of your family in a strangers hands.

After all, we ALL need a good nights rest.....

Once you have your do it yourself home security in place that is well designed and implemented; one where you focused on how to secure your home while you are in residence, then you can sleep easy at night with the knowledge that you and your family, including the four-legged ones, are fully protected.

When you plan how to best secure your home, you must approach it step by step. The first thing you should do is to make sure, and this is very important, that the intruders are detected immediately they enter your property and that they know that you know they are detected.

That is the best and most effective deterrent ever!

The crime rate in SA is of the highest in the world. We have to be very vigilant and aware of things happening around us all the time. That was why I decided that I do not want to be worried when I am at home; my home security system had to be the best, but I also do not want to feel like I am living in a prison.

The views from my home in Cape Town is absolutely stunning and I planned long and hard before I finalised my do it yourself security system, as I did not want to lose the feeling of space and freedom.

My best advice therefor is that you should have an outside to inside approach when you think of how to design and implement your do it yourself home security. Think of it as having layers of protection with you as the last line of defense, and not the first.

Do your home security step-by-step as I explained here and then come back to this page for some more solid advice and tips.....

Now that you have:

• secured your boundaries and perimeter walls,
• made it difficult for intruders to approach your home unseen, with effective lighting and home security cameras, and you have
• secured the inside of your home with an alarm and effective barriers on all entrances and windows,

let's look at a few additional ways to ensure that you and your family have peace of mind and sleep well every night.

These are valuable tips to keep in mind when you finalise your do it yourself home security design.....

1. Doors.....

Make sure all your doors are solid and strong. It is no use you fit three secure locks and even add throw bolts into the mix, but your door is light-duty....it defeats the object.

Remember..... a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link

2. Door locks.....

Use a good quality lock in combination with a deadbolt to secure your doors. A deadbolt can be either a single cylinder or a double cylinder.

A single cylinder accepts a key on one side and is operated by a twist knob on the other side.

Double cylinder knobs accepts a key on both sides and often does not have a twist knob. This prevents unwanted unlocking of the door by forced access to the interior twist know (via a nearby window mostly).

3. Watch dogs.....

Criminals are always wary of a home with watch dogs. In this case, a bark is as good as a bite! It is best to let your dogs sleep inside at night. For a good nights rest of course.....hehehe, just joking!

Intruders always make some noise and even if we can't hear it, dogs invariably has much better hearing than us and is bound to wake up.

The reason I recommend that you let your dogs sleep inside is because of the latest trend in South Africa where criminals feed dogs with poisoned meat..... horrific, but unfortunately true! If they sleep inside, this can't be easily done.

4. Secure your possessions in a safe.....

Then the last thing I want to highlight here is the importance of a safe in your home as a last line of defence.

Make sure your important documents like passports and other identification documents, birth certificates, bank cards and cash are all safely locked away.

A well hidden and secure safe has frustrated the attempts of many an intruder.

I hoped you enjoyed the advice I gave you here for your do it yourself home security project and that you and your family will always be safe and secure in your home.

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