Deadlocks, window locks and door hardware — fitted in Melbourne

A latch holds the door shut. A deadlock throws a solid bolt into the frame that cannot be pushed back without the key. A door with only a latch can often be opened with a card or a shim in seconds — a properly fitted deadbolt cannot.

Many home and contents policies specify minimum security — commonly deadlocks on external doors and key-operated locks on accessible windows — and a claim can be affected if they are not fitted. It is worth reading that section of your policy before you need it rather than after.

Every external door, including the ones nobody thinks about: the laundry door, the garage personnel door and any door from a garage into the house. The front door is almost always the best-secured entry on a property and almost never the one used to get in.

In most cases, yes — and it is worth saying up front that you care about the door. Period doors need careful marking and drilling and hardware that suits them. If a particular door is genuinely too thin or too fragile for a particular lock, you will be told that instead of sold it.

Both are commonly the weak point. A lot of sliding doors lock against sliding but not against being lifted out of the track, which a patio bolt fixes. Window locks are inexpensive and matter most on the ground floor and anything reachable from a fence, carport or flat roof.

Usually, yes. Keying alike across the front, back, laundry and garage is one of the most-requested jobs and it costs very little more than fitting them separately.

Supplied and fitted, a deadlock on a standard timber door usually lands in the same territory as replacing a lock — around $125 to $370 depending on the hardware and the door. Older doors, heritage timber and anything needing a new mortice take longer. Doing several doors in one visit brings the per-door cost down considerably, which is worth knowing if your insurer has asked for deadlocks on all external doors.

Picking is far rarer than television suggests — it takes practice, takes time, and most opportunistic break-ins do not involve the lock at all. The realistic threats to a deadbolt are a poorly fitted strike plate, short screws that do not reach the frame stud, and a door or frame weak enough to force. A good deadlock badly installed is worse than a modest one fitted properly, which is why the strike and the screws matter as much as the brand.

There is no single official list, and be wary of anyone who tells you otherwise. What crime prevention advice and most Australian insurance policies have in common is the same three points: a key-operated deadlock on external doors, working latches on any window that could be used to get in, and a secondary lock on sliding doors. The recurring emphasis is on installation rather than brand — locks fixed into solid framing with long screws, and a door that closes squarely. Read your own policy wording, because insurers differ on what they will accept as a deadlock.