How to childproof a sliding glass door that can be unlocked and locked inside and out
My house has a sliding glass door as the main entrance and I need a solution to have it secure from tiny hands. My problem is it needs to be able to unlock and lock on both sides of the door so a pin drop or cross bar won’t work.
I like this idea and it could work well. I was considering a latch system but the issue is it would need to go at the top of the door and would be problematic on the outside with the stairs and there can be leverage at the bottom popping the door out of the tracks
Not being able to exit your home in an emergency without a key is a serious safety problem. In most places it is not permitted.
International Residential Code R311.4.4 “All egress doors shall be readily openable from the side from which egress is to be made without the use of a key or special knowledge or effort”. Most local codes are derived from this.
Yes this is why I need it to be accessible on both sides of the door. 1 for emergency access and 2 so I and my partner can unlock it coming home from work if the other is sleeping
edit added missing word
I guess I didn’t understand what you were describing. When we moved in to our house, the previous owners had a deadbolt that locked with a key on the inside instead of a thumb turn, and it was the only way to lock the door. This is a pretty bad idea since it creates a potential situation where you’re stuck inside your house, or have to find another exit. In some emergencies, seconds count. Even if you know how to open the door, you might have someone over who doesn’t, which is why fire codes are the way they are. Someone unfamiliar with the setup, panicking, in the dark, in a room full of smoke, needs to be able to escape without solving a puzzle.
Because I already had experience with having to replace that lock with an appropriate one for an exit door, I jumped straight to the assumption that when you said “lock on both sides”, you were talking about a key, and not just a childproof latch of some kind. I have the privilege of not living with anyone who is a flight risk, so it’s easy for me to just dismiss it as unsafe. I looked at some of the solutions out there and they seem to be designed to stop toddlers with no dexterity, not an autistic person determined to turn all the things. Sorry if my answer was unhelpful; people are injured or killed every day because they created a situation they didn’t realize was hazardous until it was too late. My intention was only to prevent the downsides of locking the door this way from being overlooked.
Yes the current lock is a simple toggle that grabs an edge of the door on the inside. There is a keyhole on the outside which pushes the lever up unlatching the clasp from the edge of the door
edited spelling errors
Sorry if this is an obvious question but since it's the main entrance, you already have a key, right? You already have the means to lock and unlock this door in a childproof way from both sides. Usually childproof locks are for pantry doors and such.
How come you need an extra layer of locking for the main door?
The current lock is a simple toggle. My autistic child loves to play with switches/nobs/wheels ect so he will be able to easily open the lock and pull open the door. There is nothing I can find to stop him from access to the toggle without blocking access from unlocking from the other side of the door
Yes I’m in a trailer and it’s a stupid door that the
Manufacturer put in to “add more natural light” if I have to stay in this trailer for more than a year I’ll take it out and put in an actual door
Hm...I don't think I've heard of trailers having sliding glass doors for the entrance. But I'm really curious as to what this looks like. I've never heard of anyone having a sliding glass door for their main entrance, trailer or not. I'm trying to picture how that locks and unlocks.
You can get a lockset with a numerical keypad on both the inside and outside hardware. i.e. no inside knob on the lock for little fingers to let themselves out. It might technically be a fire hazard, though, unless you have an alternate means of quick escape. Keep a safety glass breaker tool by the door but up high or something.
Most keypad sets use a deadbolt system, because it’s a sliding door a deadbolt won’t work because it slides open. I have seen other locks that use clasps but none of them have keypads on both sides of the door.
edit: Last night when i looked on Amazon, it appeared that there were several for a sliding patio door. There are thin ones for sure, you could ask in the questions if they will work for mortise locks. I know you dont specifically need the solution to be "smart home" capable but maybe one of these solutions would align with your needs.
Some kind of a magnet pin situation? Like the child cabinet locks that use a magnet. From one side your can just move the lock. From the other side your can use a magnet to move the lock.
That might be an interesting approach if I can figure out how to get a pin through like a deadbolt and disengage with a magnet on a stick. Thanks for the different idea!
I grew up autistic and fascinated with water. My mom handled that by taking me swimming all the time. We were at pools, rivers, lakes, water parks all the time and I absolutely loved it.
The world is full of water hazards, and the best safety plan is to master them.
Probably not what you want to hear, but when I was growing up my dad used a few tubes of silicone to seal up some of the windows and sliding door at my house. When we got older he just took a utility knife and cut it off
If I’m able to build a landing/porch on the outside this is the easiest solution. But at the moment my stairs make it 1.5 feet lower than the inside floor which means it’ll to high on the outside but to low on the inside.
Remote control then. Getting into the house requires push of a button or typing in code. Getting out can be done with manual turn of deadbolt because inside you’re high enough to reach:
fire failsafe because you’ve got mechanical control when trying to exit even if electricity’s out
harder to copy your key because it’ll be a key fob or something
if you do lose a key you can simply de-authorize it instead of having to change locks
probably cost you a few hundred to a thousand for the hardware and install labor. Just my guesses at price haven’t looked into it
Deadbolt at the top can cause the door to shift out of its tracks when pulled on and if it’s at the bottom it’s easily accessible to tiny hands playing with it. If I place it more in the top centre it’ll be Duffy to reach with a key unless it’s electronic.. and that comes with many other issues