Building a new house and shop (5 Viewers)

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This seems a bit odd to me with the screws visible on the exterior? Couldn't you just unscrew the plate and get into the house that way?
 
Me thinks that's just for the facia plate. Secure hardware on inside.
 
Ok, but then for a high end piece of hardware the screws look "unfinished"...
 
Ok, but then for a high end piece of hardware the screws look "unfinished"...

Absolutely; I have a whole list of complaints about that piece. Did I mention that it cost half what the entire door was? It's from Rejuvenation in Portland, OR, and advertised as "forged solid brass construction" and "assembled in the USA of domestic and imported parts". When it came, everything labeled was labeled as made in China. I had to file several parts and openings to get the latch mechanism and the dead bolt to work correctly. As previously mentioned, it was missing the backing plate to secure the dead bolt not once but twice; I ended up making my own. It took weeks to ship (both times), and the installation instructions were nearly illegible "engrish". I will never buy anything from them again; fortunately the wife agrees now.
 
When I was in Scotland in 2019 the AirBnB's I stayed in, all 3 in different parts of the country, had full jam security. There were bolts on both sides that were activated by the handle all along the jam from top to bottom. It would take a ram pole on a truck to break the door for unauthorized entry. Anyone know of this security level available in the US?
 
I like their door at 1:22 - a white door with full height glass on either side of it. Somehow I don't think the strength of the door plays into it in that situation...

I know a number of companies offer "multi-point locking" systems (Pella is one example: Do I Need a Multipoint Lock for My Door? - https://www.pellabranch.com/blog/global-blogs/choosing-a-door-lock/), but these are typically just on the strike side of the door. Sargent offers a similar system that has the top and bottom bolts through the top and bottom of the door instead of just on the strike side (Multi-Point Lock - https://www.sargentlock.com/en/products/multi-point-lock/).

I'd have to do some research to see what might be available beyond those systems.

Although, the way a typical home is built these days, a cordless reciprocating saw would get you through a wall in very little time...
 
Although, the way a typical home is built these days, a cordless reciprocating saw would get you through a wall in very little time...
This.

My neighbour had their barn / workshop emptied by thugs cutting through the wall rather than fight the locked door. Cut the alarm cable at the pole too, tough to beat.
 
You can make the door as strong as you want but in the end the locks can be picked or pulled. Its just the amount of time it takes to open them that makes them pick another house that takes less time to get in.
A good lock, camera’s and a decent alarm system gives them less time to “work” before being noticed.
 
Door security is more about home invasion as much as theft prevention these days. Crack heads can't think beyond their nerve ganglia and see only the door as a port of entry, that's how they get in their own crib, so that's how they plan to get in yours to put a gun to your head and start acting big. A good door slows then down giving you time to be better armed than the lot of them. And yes, shoot through the wall next to the door to drop them. No sense in having to replace such an expensive door.
 
Door security is more about home invasion as much as theft prevention these days. Crack heads can't think beyond their nerve ganglia and see only the door as a port of entry, that's how they get in their own crib, so that's how they plan to get in yours to put a gun to your head and start acting big. A good door slows then down giving you time to be better armed than the lot of them. And yes, shoot through the wall next to the door to drop them. No sense in having to replace such an expensive door.
@1911's walls are concrete...

But point taken. =)
 
Some electronically triggered explosives around the house would do the trick then.
Crazy world we are living in.

That's why you maintain multiple fields of fire around the house! :hillbilly:
 
Thanks for sharing your home with us @1911

It's going to take some time for me to read and fully flesh out everything you got going on here but I'm looking forward to it.

Dralston
 
Latest little bit of progress: I put up the meter base and 200-amp disconnect for the house myself. A simple thing for a lot of you guys I suspect, but it was all new to me. The hardest part was figuring out how to connect the two enclosures with the correct components. The 2" knock-outs in both enclosures do not line up; different manufacturers. I would have thought there might be industry-standard offsets for that sort of thing (including the offsets for the mounting holes) by now, but apparently not. A piece of flexible conduit and some compression fitting hubs made for it were the answer.

The first of many things electrical I'm sure I'll have to learn. Besides the satisfaction of doing it myself, it saves the money from having to pay an electrician to come do every little thing.

The electric co-op that I get my power from had a contractor come out and trench and bury the conduit and line from the power pedestal under the pole with the transformer to my meter base. Waiting for them now to come hook up and set the meter.

The location of the meter base is on the well house, facing the big house, so it will easier (no turns) to run the heavy cable from there, in PVC pipe under the driveway and house, to the main panel in the mechanical room in the middle of the house.

Meter base and disconnect.jpg
 
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Looks good.

Electricians use knockout punches to put enclosure holes wherever they need them. Electrical code is complicated. I do a lot of industrial 3 phase stuff and it makes way more sense to me than most of the codes for single phase residential. Residential is a mix of stupidly over the top and as cheap and junky as we could possibly make it.
 
Latest little bit of progress: I put up the meter base and 200-amp disconnect for the house myself. A simple thing for a lot of you guys I suspect, but it was all new to me. The hardest part was figuring out how to connect the two enclosures with the correct components. The 2" knock-outs in both enclosures do not line up; different manufacturers. I would have thought there might be industry-standard offsets for that sort of thing (including the offsets for the mounting holes) by now, but apparently not. A piece of flexible conduit and some compression fitting hubs made for it were the answer.

The first of many things electrical I'm sure I'll have to learn. Besides the satisfaction of doing it myself, it saves the money from having to pay an electrician to come do every little thing.

The electric co-op that I get my power from had a contractor come out and trench and bury the conduit and line from the power pedestal under the pole with the transformer to my meter base. Waiting for them now to come hook up and set the meter.

The location of the meter base is on the well house, facing the big house, so it will easier (no turns) to run the heavy cable from there, in PVC pipe under the driveway and house, to the main panel in the mechanical room in the middle of the house.

View attachment 2996428
Good work. Next time, find an offset nipple. Works like a dream and the way they can infinitely rotate helps align all sorts of holes, various backspacing, etc., assuming you don’t desire the cans/enclosures to be perfectly aligned bottom/bottom.
 
Good work. Next time, find an offset nipple. Works like a dream and the way they can infinitely rotate helps align all sorts of holes, various backspacing, etc., assuming you don’t desire the cans/enclosures to be perfectly aligned bottom/bottom.

They had 2" offset nipples at Home Depot, and I almost bought one - but I decided that the offset was too much for what I needed, and both enclosures were already mounted (and I didn't want to drill more holes in the back to move the mounting points). What I should have done was mount the enclosures with an eye to either aligning the knock-outs or using the offset nipple, but I just used the mounting points provided and set up the unistrut to suit those, without thinking sufficiently ahead. Live and learn.
 
I'm surprised that they didn't require an expansion coupling up to the meter.
 
I'm surprised that they didn't require an expansion coupling up to the meter.

No explanation except that this a rural electric co-op in a small rural county, with zero code requirements or inspections.
 

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