In some communities where crime rate is high, you may see burglar bars placed on the outside of a home to prevent intruders from breaking in. Burglar bars are effective, but may not be so attractive looking, so can burglar bars be placed on the inside for your windows?

Burglar bars can be placed on the inside of the windows of your home to make the exterior of your home more aesthetically pleasing. The are safe to use, provided that they can easily be removed within a few seconds with the use of a quick-release mechanism in the event of a fire.

According to Alarms.org, “95% of all home invasions require some sort of forceful entry, be that breaking a window, picking a lock, or kicking in a door.” If your house is going to be broken into, there is a very high probability that a forceful entry will take place. What if you could drastically drop the likelihood of that happening? Would you be willing to install burglar bars on the windows of your home to prevent home intrusion?

Why You Might Consider Installing Burglar Bars

There are several reasons why you might want to consider installing burglar bars on your home. You may live in a high crime community that has a high burglar rate, and you just want to ensure that you and your family is safe within your own home.

You may live in an area where there are slow police response times, or lack a neighborhood-watch program. Rather than depend on someone else, even the police, to protect you, you might want to consider installing burglar bars on the windows of your home so that would-be intruders will be not bother trying to break in, because it’s just too much of a hassle. Burglar bars serve to intimidate would-be intruders.

If you have basement windows with shrubberies or bushes that hide the basement window from public view, you may want to consider using burglar bars to prevent an intruder from breaking in and entering your home.

If you are afraid that your home will be broken into for any reason, installing burglar bars on your home will give you confidence knowing that the probability of your home being broken will drop dramatically.

Which Is Better, Bars on the Inside or Bars on the Outside?

Most security bars are designed to mount on the outside of the home. In a minute, we will get to how they function and what they look like, but understand that most of them are designed for the exterior, not the interior.

Manufacturers know that when mounted on the exterior of the house, it is easier to exit the home because there are less things that could potentially obstruct you from swinging open the burglar bars to get out in an emergency, like a fire.

There are several quick-release mechanisms available on the market today that allow for one to easily escape through a window being that is protected by burglar bars.

Because safety has to be the number one priority, the burglar bar that lets you easily remove the burglar bars within a few seconds is the determining factor in deciding if you should choose a burglar bar that mounts on the inside or outside of the window.

Types of Burglar Bars

Permanent Security Bars

These are meant to remain bolted onto the house as a permanent fixture. The worst thing you could do is to place permanent security burglar bars on the outside of your house. How can I make this claim?

Though burglar bars that are mounted on the outside of your home are extremely effective at preventing burglars from entering into your home, they also prevent you from getting outside of your home, should a fire arise. In effect, permanent security bars entrap you within your own home. Many cities and communities have laws in place that make it illegal to place permanent security bars on the outside of one’s home, for this very reason. It’s a safety hazard.

One might argue that they are trying to keep themselves safe from potential intruders, but there are better solutions. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Swing Away Bars

This setup is based on a hinge mechanism that makes for an emergency escape route. Additionally, once can easily clean the window with this type of system.

Push Release

The Push button release mechanism allows you to push a mechanical button from the inside, which releases the locking pin from the hinged burglar bar on the outside of the house. Once pushed, burglar bar will easily swing open on the hinge that it is mounted to on the outside of the house.

The Push Release button does have a protective cap covering the button to prevent it from accidentally being pushed, however. This may not be the best solution for younger kids or the elderly, as it will require a firm push on the button itself. This leads me to the next two solutions.

Foot-Activated Release

A foot-activated release mechanism is based on 2 cables that trigger the release of a pin that holds the burglar bars in place. Once triggered, the burglar bars on the outside of the house will swing open on a hinge, allowing one to easily exit the window.

The only problem with this particular method, is that a child could easily kick the release which would allow the burglar bars to easily swing open on the outside of the house. If however, the child (or elderly person), is shown how the foot-activated release works, and at the same time, is made aware of of the importance of ensuring that you do not kick it accidentally, you should be just fine. It might even be a good idea to have them practice kicking it to see how hard they have to kick it for it to work.

Cable Release

A cable release mechanism works similar to the foot-activated release, but instead of kicking a bright yellow (or fluorescent), pedal, you pull the safety pin and then pull the cable release, which as described above, allows the burglar bars to swing open on the hinge of the outside of the house.

Removable Bars

This solution is often used for residential store-fronts where the business may be on the bottom floor, and the business owners reside on the 2nd floor. At the close of business, the burglar bars are manually inserted into place one-by-one, and locked into position with a key. When the business opens, they are unlocked and removed one-by-one.

This solution is not ideal, however. If the removable bars were locked in place, and there was a fire, the only way to get out would be through the widow. Before doing so, you would have to find the key, unlock it, and literally remove the burglar bars one-by-one. When time is of the essence, this is not the ideal solution.

Burglar Bars Don’t Have To Look Like Prison Bars

Burglar bars are generally made out of steel tubing or cast iron, and come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and can be custom built to fit your exact window size. You can also paint them any color you want, though you should probably use a rust-oleum based paint to prevent rust from setting in.

Some companies, like Medalian, have creatively designed custom-built burglar bars to match the window pane, making it an “invisible” burglar bar. It’s not actually invisible, but it appears to be, as it is designed to look like the the window pane.

Some Home Owner’s Associations (HOA), will not allow burglar bars in their “community”, for aesthetic reasons. Having a custom built “Invisible” burglar bar not only looks great, but it also will not violate the spirit of the law of your HOA.