National Home Security Month
Putting Security in the Frame
Gareth Parton, Sales & Marketing Director at Kömmerling UK, discusses the importance of patio door security and how the latest burglary figures reinforce the need to specify products that offer proven protection.
The stats for the number of home break-ins across England and Wales in 2025 were recorded by Police at 154,161 – averaging an eye-watering 422 break-ins every day. However, sadly, the Office for National Statistics( ONS) estimated that the true figure, including unreported incidents, was closer to 327,000 for the year. The figures are undeniably worrying, and homeowners must do all they can to remain vigilant to the threat of a break-in.
When thinking about home security, most homeowners immediately turn their attention to the main entrance door at the front of the home. Ensuring that this is strong and secure, and more recently, having a doorbell camera in place, is often the key focus of keeping their home safe and secure for many.
However, the official Police website states that a home is“ only ever as secure as its weakest point of entry”, and that is not necessarily always the front door.
Burglars generally want to avoid being seen or heard so that they can go about breaking and entering without any disturbance or chance of the police being called by witnesses. This makes the less visible areas of a property particularly vulnerable when assessing security. Side passages, rear gardens, and doors that are not visible from the street can all potentially give an intruder more opportunity to attempt entry without attracting attention or being disturbed.
Sensible precautions include securing access to rear gardens, using exterior security lighting and cameras to deter burglars from accessing the rear of the property, and of course, ensuring that doors on the rear of a property are up to scratch in terms of the security they offer, as the door itself is ultimately the first physical line of defence.
For homeowners with older sliding patio doors, this deserves particular consideration. Police security advice specifically identifies patio doors as being potentially vulnerable to forced entry and recommends checking that they incorporate anti-lift design features to prevent them being lifted from their frames.
Modern patio doors have come a long way from some of the products installed in British homes decades ago, which were relatively easy to lift out of the frame. Today’ s systems combine large expanses of glazing and smooth operation with increasingly sophisticated security technology. However, not all patio doors are equal in terms of the resistance they offer against a break-in …
For Kömmerling, developing the PremiLine Pro patio door meant looking beyond the security offered on‘ typical’ modern patio doors, and addressing one of the fundamental security challenges associated with patio door design: the interlock where the sliding sashes meet.
This is an area which can potentially be subjected to considerable force during an attempted break-in and has traditionally represented the most vulnerable point in the design of a PVCu patio door.
Designed to meet the requirements of Document Q, the PremiLine Pro patio door tackles the issue directly with a PAS 24 approved and patented multi-point locking system positioned at the interlock itself for unrivalled security. Rather than relying upon supplementary high and low-level locks or visually intrusive additional
locking devices, the technology integrates additional security into the door itself.
A unique three-position pop-out handle operates the multi-point lock at the interlock, providing additional protection exactly where it is required, while retaining the clean, aesthetically pleasing appearance expected from a contemporary patio door.
It’ s a neat solution to a complex and long-standing security problem, and one which has been engineered around the way that a patio door is typically attacked by an intruder.
Of course, security claims need to be supported by more than just product design, especially when they are so crucial in protecting people’ s homes and personal possessions.
The PremiLine Pro achieves PAS 24:2022 in two, three and four-pane configurations, providing independently tested reassurance over its resistance to attack. The testing that the door underwent to achieve this widely recognised security credential was rigorous, involving a 15-minute test with human intervention from crowbars and other hand tools that might be used by a burglar. Mechanical loading followed onto 37 different points on the door, which were each subjected to half and quarter tonne loads in different directions. Additional human intervention, along with soft and hard body impact testing was also carried out, taking place throughout the testing programme.
62 OCTOBER 2026 CLEARVIEW-UK. COM