What Is Lock Snapping & How to Prevent Lock Snapping For Good?
Our homes are supposed to be our safe spaces, and for the most part, they are, but if you’re not securing your home properly, it can be vulnerable to an attack. If you’re still using “regular locks”, they can easily be rendered useless by a burglar who knows how to use a technique called “Lock Snapping”.
What Is Lock Snapping?
We’ve always heard that if you want to keep burglars out of your home, you need to lock your doors. Well, that doesn’t seem like something that’s enough anymore. With regular door locks, even if you’ve remembered to lock it behind you every time, it can be rendered useless. “Lock Snapping” is a technique that’s fairly easy to learn, doesn’t really require any skills and they don’t even need a special tool to do it! All they need is any tool with a pointy end like a screwdriver paired with blunt force like hitting it with a hammer, and they’ll be able to “snap” your lock in half within seconds!
How does it work?
The most commonly used locks for the past few decades have been the Euro profile cylinder locks. These are used all over the world! These are the locks that you can lock “twice”. For most of us, the multi lock mechanism feels “safer”, we think that since there are two locks within the same frame, an intruder won’t be able to break in. Theoretically, they would be caught trying to break in when they unlock it the first time, but this very mechanism is what makes the lock so easy to snap
Burglars with the knowledge of lock snapping can just creep up to your door, wedge a screwdriver into the cylinder that has both locks in it, and apply a certain amount of pressure and the lock will literally snap in two halves like a walnut.
The terrifying part about this is that even if you remember to lock your doors, it doesn’t take a burglar much effort to break into your home. They don’t even need to bring the tools with them for it, if you’re someone who keeps their tools in a toolbox in the back of your home or a shed, they could use your own tools against you and get into your home!
Lock Snapping is a technique that’s used by both seasoned and new burglars. So there’s a dire need to make sure that your locks can’t be snapped.
Is there a way to prevent lock snapping?
There’s actually a pretty easy fix to the problem of lock snapping, changing the vulnerable locks!
If you have just moved into a new home, you should be changing the locks anyway to secure the building, but it’s more important to make sure you don’t have euro cylinder locks on your doors. If you don’t know how to tell the difference between a euro cylinder lock apart from another, call a Locksmith in Chicago, or a well rated locksmith in your area, and have them come and take a look at your locks. They will easily be able to inspect your lock and tell you if your locks are vulnerable to lock snapping or not. If you find that your locks are the regular euro cylinder locks, have them replaced immediately with an anti-snap lock.
An anti-snap lock has a much stronger cylinder. They’re built in a way that no matter how much pressure they’re subjected to, the cylinder would stay intact. This way, when you lock your doors, you can be sure that they won’t snap! Not all anti-snap locks fit on every door frame but your locksmith should be able to recommend the perfect one for your home!
