I've been in homes where the owners had every door and window secured properly, installed all the proper lighting and had all the exterior shrubbery trimmed to expose the sight lines, but failed the test because they installed a weak, useless chain on the front door. All it would take is one good shove from a burglar to either pull the hardware away from the wall or snap the chain in two.

Cheap chains are nothing more than an excuse to open your door to a potentially dangerous situation. Why not remove these inadequate devices and eliminate the risk of a home invasion. If you inherited a chain from a previous owner, remove it right away, before any bad habits are picked up from your family members.

Replace door chains with door viewers with a radius Exterior Wood Door Guys Try and purchase a door viewer or peep hole with a cover that falls in front of the inside lenses to restrict intruders from using a reverse lenses to view inside your home from the outside. When you want to view who's at your door, simply move the cover to the side and look through the door viewer.

If you have a thicker pocket book, consider a Video entry system for your home's front door area. Video entry systems are audio/visual security systems that use sophisticated infrared technology to give you a clear, wide-angle view of the area around your front door, even in near-total darkness. These video systems enable you to see who is at your front door through a four-inch color monitor that turns on automatically when the door bell rings.