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.
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
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!
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
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
This actually might be the quickest solution even if he opens the door he won’t be able to go through. I’ll look into see if there’s any gates that would work! Thank you!
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.
My little guy is more interested in how things move and what they do when used. Like flicking light switches turning knobs, pressing buttons ect and seeing what happens when they are engaged/disengaged. Our worry is that he’ll open the door to explore to find more things to try and get lost or wander towards the river in search of more switches or nobs to turn
Like she had me in a swimming class as an infant. There’s a picture of me as a baby with little water wings on, in her hands, in the water.
We didn’t know I was autistic, incidentally. I didn’t know until I was 30.
One of the things she liked to mention is how when I was four, they had me out on the beach in California, and were watching me from a distance. I was looking at the sand, crouched down facing away from the water, and a wave came in, and even though I was mentally absorbed in the sand, I stood up when the wave came by.
She always liked going on about natural wisdom and kids are amazing and all that. She was a type for sure.
But I guess what I’m saying is I have had a lifelong love affair with water and Mom encouraged that and as a result water doesn’t frighten or bother me in the least because Im a strong swimmer and I know how to handle it in various conditions: streams, rivers, pools, lakes, muddy streams, rocky streams, freezing cold water, thin ice, ocean, kayaks, life jackets, wet suits, canoes, motorboats, snorkels, collecting frogs and building little rock dams, it’s been a great part of my life and I’m way more competent to keep myself safe around water.
I’m not saying don’t get a lock. Definitely get a lock and control any unsupervised access to the river.
But also give him lots of supervised access. Like, hours and hours where you’re just hanging out and he’s nearby right there at the water’s edge doing whatever he feels like.
He’s drawn to the water because he wants to experiment and explore it. You can reduce the danger of that drive by allowing it to operate. Autistic minds love to learn really deeply, and unlike the world of culture the physical world is something that can be studied ever deeper without any loss of appropriateness for anything learned. Physics doesn’t change, and nature operates in a learnable fashion. I’m so glad I was in nature all the time as a boy, and often on my own, exploring however I and my little friends saw fit.
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.
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?
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.
I’m not endorsing it, but it definitely happens. It’s like this: measure twice. cut once, or more than once. Put door in hole. Fill gaps with whatever caulk gun or whatever. …
Lol. I haven’t seen sliding glass doors on trailers either, but I have seen a house with a main sliding glass door. That house also had a regular door on the side, but it was far easier to use the sliding one especially when accessing the property from the street.
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
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 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
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