Last Updated on October 2, 2026
The easiest way to reinforce a door is to swap six of the short screws in the door hinges and strike for 3-inch screws that reach the wall studs. It takes minutes, costs a few dollars, and improves the door’s kick resistance by at least 3X. Add frame, door and lock upgrades after that if you want more.
Start With 3-Inch Screws | The Math | Why Reinforce Your Door | Strengthen the Door Frame | Strengthen the Door | Improving the Door Locks | Make Your Door Pick Proof | FAQ
Why You Need to Reinforce Your Door
Your home protects some of the most important things in your life: your family and your possessions. But the main line of home defense, the front door, can be bypassed several ways and as quickly as 1 second when steps have not been taken to reinforce the door and reinforce the door frame. In this article we discuss How to Reinforce a Front Door (or any door for that matter).
There is approximately one burglary in the US every 15 seconds. That’s 240 an hour, 5,760 break-ins per day. Most home robberies occur during the day while the homeowners are at work, and most occur using forcible entry through the front entry door. And surprisingly, a significant number, 30%, occur by simply walking through an unlocked door.
Our locksmiths can open your front door in less than 30 seconds, without using force. So can a knowledgeable criminal. And residential doors can easily be kicked in. By default, builders don’t focus on door reinforcement or security, they focus on profit, which means limited door security. The best way to prevent a kick in is by reinforcing the exterior doors.
Start Here: Replace Screws With 3-Inch Screws
Most doors are held to the door frame by short screws, about 3/4 inch. Those screws only go into the framing trim, not into the door’s opening structure. A kick to the door can easily split the frame and the door gives way.
Replace six of those 3/4 inch screws with 3-inch screws. Two in the upper hinge, two in the lower hinge, and two in the deadbolt strike. Each one goes through the jamb and into the 2×4 wall studs behind it. That’s the whole job, and it’s the single best thing you can do to a door.
One thing specific to Central and Southern Arizona: the framing around your door dries out over the years in this climate. The 3/4 inch screws the builder used will pull straight out of dry wood the first time somebody kicks that door.
That is why the long screws matter more here than they do in a wetter climate. A 3 to 3 1/2 inch screw reaches past the dried-out framing and bite into the stud behind it, and that is what actually stops the kick.
Throw out the 3/4-inch screws that were installed on your door hinges and door strike by the builder, and replace them with 3″ to 3.5″ screws.
This is a DIY job that any homeowner, comfortable with a power drill, can do. You can get these screws at Home Depot.
ACME Locksmith does this on every door we rekey as part of our door rekey package. See home rekey service or the full cost to rekey a house.
The Math: Why 3-Inch Screws Hold About 4 Times More
Wood-screw holding strength comes from the National Design Specification for Wood Construction (NDS), published by the American Wood Council. It’s the standard engineers and building codes use for wood connections. NDS Equation 12.2-2 gives a screw’s withdrawal value: W = 2,850 x G² x D, in pounds per inch of thread in the wood.
| Input | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| G, wood specific gravity | 0.42 | NDS value for spruce-pine-fir framing lumber |
| D, screw diameter | 0.164 in | a #8 wood screw (NDS standard dimension) |
| Stock screw thread in wood | about 0.5 in | a 3/4-inch screw through a strike or hinge plate into a 3/4-inch jamb |
| 3-inch screw thread in wood | about 2.25 in | 3/4 in of jamb plus about 1.5 in of 2×4 stud, after the plate and the shim gap |
Holding per inch = 2,850 x 0.42² x 0.164 = about 82 lb per inch of thread in the wood.
| Stock 3/4-inch screw | 3-inch screw | |
|---|---|---|
| What it bites into | the thin door jamb only | the jamb plus the 2×4 stud behind it |
| Thread in wood | about 0.5 in | about 2.25 in |
| Holding per screw | 82 x 0.5 = about 41 lb | 82 x 2.25 = about 185 lb |
| Ratio | 1x | about 4.5x |
| At the deadbolt strike (2 screws) | about 82 lb | about 370 lb |
| Whole door (6 screws) | about 246 lb | about 1,110 lb |
The wood’s density (G) is in both numbers, so it cancels out of the comparison. Whether your frame is pine or Douglas fir, the 3-inch screw holds about 4.5 times more, because it has about 4.5 times more thread in solid wood.
These are engineering reference values for pulling a screw straight out, not a lab kick test. NDS values include a large safety margin, so real holding strength is higher for both screws. The ratio between them is what matters here. A real kick also tends to split the jamb around the screws, and the long screws help there too by tying the jamb to the stud. That’s why we say this at least triples the door’s kick resistance. The math supports more, but we’d rather undersell it. If you want the raw numbers, Engineering ToolBox publishes the same withdrawal values.
DIY or Hire a Professional?
I am the owner of a Phoenix locksmith company, and we reinforce doors all the time. Everything below is simple enough that most people can do it themselves in a few hours with a drill and a box of screws. If you would rather not, we’re happy to do it for you.
We dispatch across the Phoenix metro from four locations: Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, and Gilbert. We are licensed through the Arizona ROC, which only 9 locksmiths in the Phoenix area are. Schedule service or send a picture of your door jamb, and we will tell you what it needs.
Step 2: Reinforce the Door Frame
Optional Upgrade – Add a longer strike plate
If you want to take this to the next level, remove the standard strike plate that is on the door frame and replace it with an elongated strike plate.
This will allow you to use 4 (or more) 3″ screws to secure that strike plate to the 2 X 4’s behind the frame instead of just the two that a standard strike takes. This prevents the door from being kicked in by distributing force across multiple points.
Optional Upgrade – Install Reinforcement Kit
Some manufacturers sell door reinforcement kits. These kits will come with all of the hardware you need to
reinforce the framing of the door and the door edge (discussed below). They will already have the 3-3.5″ screws you need as well. The kits take what we have discussed and add to it some additional materials to further protect the door hinges. They also have strikes that are several feet long so that force is distributed over a very big area making it nearly impossible to force a door in – even with a battering ram.
Though the most expensive solution, these are the best solution and often the easiest solution since one purchase gets you everything you need. You can find them on eBay for the best prices and you get everything you need to reinforce the entry door. Amazon carries them as well.
If you aren’t comfortable installing any of these items, contact your nearest locksmith for help.
Step 3: Reinforce the Door Itself
Once you have that frame taken care of, the next thing to look at is the door. The weak part of the door is the section that contains the bolt or latch. This photo is from one of our Phoenix customers who was broken into when her door was kicked in.
The latch and bolt areas are the weak spots of the door because the bolt and latch have a small surface area. Any force on the door is concentrated on these two spots. Also, the latch and bolts are drilled through the door, so the door is thinnest at these points.
The best way to handle this is to install some sort of door wrap. It’s called a wrap because it wraps around the edge of the door. The objective of a door wrap is to create more surface area to distribute the force over. When you distribute force, the amount of force required to damage the door is much greater.
Think of it like the tip of a sharp pencil popping a filled balloon. It’s easy to pop a balloon with the tip. But if you hit the balloon with the same force from the side of the pencil it will not pop easily, because the force is distributed over a larger surface area.
The door reinforcement kits we previously discussed will have elongated wraps for the edge of the door. Again, you can find them on eBay for the best prices and Amazon. Home Depot has a wide selection of door wraps.
Got French doors? The passive door is the weak one, and it needs different hardware. See how to secure French doors.
Step 4: Install Stronger Locks
Most residential-grade door hardware installed by a builder is grade 3. That is the least strong lock grade. These locks contain plastic parts, cheap material, no resistance to lock bumping, and the shortest/narrowest bolts. They are the opposite of what you want.
When choosing a deadbolt, in addition to finish and style, you need to consider security. You can go with a high security lock installation but those locks can be expensive. Or, you can install our favorite home deadbolt lock that is 100% pick and bump proof.
To improve your door locks with off-the-shelf hardware, consider the following.
- Lock grading. The lower the grade, the more rigorous the testing of the deadbolt. Lock grade 2 is better than grade 3, and grade 1 is better than grade 2. For residential you will want at least grade 2 door locks. All grade 3 door hardware should be replaced and thrown in the garbage where they belong.
- A minimum of 1″ throw for deadbolts. “Throw” is the length that the deadbolt extends beyond the edge of the door into the door frame. The longer the better. You need a long throw to keep someone from separating the door from the door frame using a crowbar or airbag
Keep the Door Locked: Install an Electronic Lock
Though this seems like an obvious thing, but 30% of home burglaries are accessed by walking through an unlocked door or window! The world’s best door locks will not protect your home if they are not used.
People forget to lock their doors. I’ve forgotten to lock my door too. That is until I installed an electronic lock on my door. Electronic deadbolts and levers have one great feature, the ability to auto relock themselves after being left open for a specified amount of time. So if you forget to lock your door, the lock still remembers, and your door stays secure.
My favorite residential grade 1, the best grading you can get are the Schlage touchscreen deadbolts. In addition to the bump-resistant pinning, you are getting the best materials used in a residential deadbolt. They are very affordable at Home Depot.
Be sure to get one with a key override as there is a trend to skip this in favor of saving money when building it. We also really like the Yale YRD226. Though a grade 2 deadbolt, the security is good and it is the deadbolt I have on my home (check price on Amazon).
We discuss the features of electronic deadbolts, such as Bluetooth and home automation, see smart locks.
Stop Lock Bumping
On this blog we’ve thoroughly discussed the topic of lock bumping. Click demonstration of lock bumping to see our video on it.
Bottom line. Unless you have high security locks, they are susceptible to lock bumping, and anyone with $5 and an internet connection has everything they need to open your home within seconds.
In our Best Door Deadbolt article, we discuss one-sided deadbolts. Installing a one-sided deadbolt lock will make your door pick proof and bump proof.
More on how the attack works: lock bumping. If you want something you can throw on from the inside, see door barricades.
Want us to do it? Schedule service, or send a picture of your door jamb and we’ll tell you what it needs.
Door Reinforcement Questions
What's the cheapest way to reinforce a front door?
Add six 3-inch screws, about 2 dollars. Replace two screws in each hinge and both screws in the deadbolt strike. That’s the biggest security gain per dollar you can get on a door.
How long should strike plate screws be?
Three inches, minimum. A 3-inch screw passes through the jamb and anchors in the 2×4 stud behind it. The 3/4-inch screws builders use only grab the jamb, which is trim, not structure.
Do 3-inch screws really stop a door from being kicked in?
They at least triple the door’s resistance. Using the American Wood Council’s published withdrawal values, a 3-inch screw holds about 185 pounds versus about 41 pounds for a stock screw. They won’t stop a battering ram, but they stop the single kick that most break-ins use.
Should I put 3-inch screws in the hinges too?
Yes. Two per hinge on the upper and lower hinge. The strike side gets attacked most, but a hard kick loads the hinge side as well, and hinge screws are the easiest ones to upgrade.
Do I need a door reinforcement kit?
Only if you want more than the screws give you. A kit adds a long strike and a door edge wrap that spread force over a much larger area. Start with the screws, then decide.
Disclosure: As an eBay / Amazon Associate I may earn from qualifying purchases.
