What Is Secured By Design And Why Is It Important For Doors?

Whilst people want a beautiful front door, the priority for many homeowners is safety, and a tailored aluminium door installation allows for both.

The most recent version of the Building Regulations (Approved Document Q, section 1.2) requires front doors to reach a minimum security standard, but the easiest way to know that your door is secure is to choose one with Secured by Design accreditation.

The Secured by Design initiative was launched by the UK Police Service to help people choose security products that help to prevent crime by improving their security credentials.

They focus on a wide number of security systems and whilst they do not undertake any testing themselves, they recommend suitable security standards that ensure that the door is not only secure but also provides fire resistance to stop a burglar from simply burning the door down to get in.

The accreditation consists of a series of security parameters alongside a test designed to mimic an opportunistic burglar and how they would attempt to break in using tools that could be easily bought and concealed on their person.

The most common test is PAS 24:2022 a Product Assessment Specification overseen by the British Standards Institution (BSI), with a simple pass or fail test but there are other systems available which can describe a much wider range of security products.

The most common security standard other than PAS 24 approved by Secured by Design is LPS (Loss Prevention Standard) 1175, with the most recent version of the guidance being Issue 8.2.

Before Issue 8, LPS 1175 featured eight security ratings (SR1-8), of which SR6 was the highest given to a door and lock system.

This has since been replaced by a letter and number combination, the former describing a set of increasingly complex, loud and sophisticated tools, whilst the latter is the time in minutes the door survives a forced entry attempt using these tools.

For the building regulations, the minimum standard was B3 (the old SR2), but some metal doors have higher ratings than this.