Door locks are a necessary part of the home’s security. In days gone by many people never locked their doors, especially in small towns, because thieves were not as brazen, nor as skilled, in their unlawful craft as they are now. This why door locks have come a long way from the skeleton-type keys of old and why many homeowners choose the revolutionary Taft YL88 Keyless Lock.

Here are some causes of jammed doors and locks:

Uneven Lock Latch Positioning:  To check the alignment between the locking mechanism, or pin, and the striker plate in the door jamb open the latch and close the door until the pin touches the edge of the strike plate. Using a felt pen mark the top and bottom of the pin position on the door jam. Open the door and check the marks you made. If they do not line up perfectly with the strike plate you can either take a portable grinder and make the plate opening larger or, in extreme case, take the screws out of the strike plate and reposition the plate to match the lock pin.

Deadbolt Alignment: Deadbolt sticking problems are usually caused by the pin not being correctly aligned to plate. Over time the sagging of the door may cause the pin to rub on the plate. This can also be corrected by grinding or re-adjusting the plate.

Stripped Screws: Door sagging can be caused by loose plate screws . These may come loose against the wood of the door jam all that may be needed is to tighten them back up. If the screw holes in the jam are stripped put a toothpick or wooden matchstick in the hole, snap off the end and the screw should fit tight again.

Stripped Screws on the Door Hinge: Loose door hinge screws can also cause a door to sag, and this can affect lock alignment. Use the toothpick method for tightening these up too.

Dirt in the Lock: Doors get dirty, especially the exterior doors facing the elements. Dust, salt and can cause  the parts inside the lock to corrode. Some items you can just take the lock out and clean the parts with steel wool. However, don’t put oil in the lock as the this will attract more dirt. Always use a dedicated lock lubricant

For the best in lock quality and long-term performance choose the Taft YL88 Keyless Lock.

A cautionary word of advice: if you haven’t already made your new year’s resolution, please pledge to do something: take photographs of everything in your house and upload them to an online photo site like Flickr or Picasa.  Write down serial numbers of all of your electronics and valuables and store that on a thumb drive or an online document management site like Google Docs.

We’re in the middle of a prolonged tiff with our insurance company over ownership of some of the stolen items, and having pictures and serial numbers would have been a tremendous help.

Your photographs don’t have to be high-quality, but just having them on hand is a big help.  If you have a video camera, even better.  Narrate while you shoot video of everything you own that you know you’d need in case it was stolen.

We were fortunate enough to have original boxes for some of our items and all of my power tools, but for the jewelry, electronics and computer stuff that was stolen that we had no records of, well, the fight continues.

So please, take an inventory of your items and catalog them in a secure location.  You’ll be glad you did if you ever have to deal with an insurance company’s claims department.

I hate to kick off the new year with a post like this, but this past Monday, my wife and I had our home broken into and our valuables taken.  The thief managed to strike during the light of day while the two of us were at work and had ample time to rifle through our belongings and make a safe exit.  Naturally, the break-in shook us up.  In fact, as I’m writing this, I have an installer out putting in a new home security system.

So, what can you do to make your home safer?  Here’s a quick - but certainly not complete - list of things to help ward off burglars.

• Consider buying some window alarms.  These little guys are cheap, run on batteries and can get quite loud.  For as crafty as thieves are, they sure can be dumb… so when they hear a loud alarm, they’ll likely bolt.  The downside to the window alarms is that they only go off when the window is raised, so would-be thieves could still break your window, just not unlatch and raise it to gain entry.
• Put some of your household lights on a timer.  Since I get up every morning at 5:30am for work, I typically go to bed around 10pm.  My wife and I usually keep our timers stashed away until we’re about to go on a vacation, but now we’ve got them turning on lights before we get home from work and after we go to bed.  We like to use the multi-setting timers so we can vary the on/off times and make it look more natural.

In closing, I hope a home invasion is something you never have to go through.  Just dealing with the insurance company alone makes me wish I caught the guy in the act so I could just write him a check and be on my way, rather than dealing with the hassles it brought on.