Front door furniture and door bell/camera

[overlander matt]

I've been working on our front door over the past few weeks and am slowly getting to the point of considering door furniture and most probably a door bell/camera as we never really use the front door.

I've included a couple of photos to show the door. I'm interested to know what would be considered the 'right' furniture for the door as what we had previously was a bit of a mix. The house is Georgian but the door is probably just a one-off added some years later that doesn't follow a typical period style.




Externally, there was a rim lock handle and small letter box cover. I was thinking a central knob and letter box plus whatever locking options I go for. Internally there was an old steel rim lock that wasn't properly fixed (held in place with nails and bodged over the panel moulding), a modern night catch, security chain and bolts.

I wonder what door furniture works for an old house these days from an aesthetic and functional perspective. A lock/catch in an old style would be a good start- so many options look too new. Could anyone suggest any suppliers that offer something suitable? I'm not sure I can stretch to a Banhams right now. Some other means of securing the door at the top and bottom would also help. I did wonder about some form of deadlocks that cannot easily be slid open by a burglar working through the letter box. Ultimately, there's not much point making the door so secure when the windows are all single glazed

Finally, a door bell/camera... Not terribly period but a useful addition that would hopefully help solve the occasional lost package and unwanted visitor problem. I was looking at Eufy - anyone have any experience in an old house with solid walls or making the unit look less obtrusive?

Thanks for any ideas.

Matt

 

[Toby Newell]

Banhams are expensive for a reason, you cannot be that poor, I just hit a pothole at £856 for new leaf spring brake line and ball joint, you just suck it up, this is your security. Just imho. Sounds harsh but trying to help, cheaper locks might be false economy, Yale et al are not what they used to be, I have had more than one client who changed them after the fact because they did not work as well as they should of, its a heavy door and may warp or drop, you want a lock set that is high quality and can deal with that.

As regards aesthetics I actually liked the arts and crafts swan neck letterbox, fitted the quirkiness.

A larger black cast iron rectangular box with a large central black knob or knocker would look best imo. Later Georgian, early Victorian style. Your door is quite imposing, I feel it can stand quite large and robust furniture. I would place the knob or knocker inbetween the middle panel and the top two panels.

Coming from 1970s slightly hippy parents I am sorely tempted to paint an eye in the middle panel though...

 

[Toby Newell]

Whats so funny Drayton? An eye in the middle and two contrasting colours for the panels...

 

[Toby Newell]

I've been working on our front door over the past few weeks and am slowly getting to the point of considering door furniture and most probably a door bell/camera as we never really use the front door.

I've included a couple of photos to show the door. I'm interested to know what would be considered the 'right' furniture for the door as what we had previously was a bit of a mix. The house is Georgian but the door is probably just a one-off added some years later that doesn't follow a typical period style.


View attachment 11660View attachment 11661

Externally, there was a rim lock handle and small letter box cover. I was thinking a central knob and letter box plus whatever locking options I go for. Internally there was an old steel rim lock that wasn't properly fixed (held in place with nails and bodged over the panel moulding), a modern night catch, security chain and bolts.

I wonder what door furniture works for an old house these days from an aesthetic and functional perspective. A lock/catch in an old style would be a good start- so many options look too new. Could anyone suggest any suppliers that offer something suitable? I'm not sure I can stretch to a Banhams right now. Some other means of securing the door at the top and bottom would also help. I did wonder about some form of deadlocks that cannot easily be slid open by a burglar working through the letter box. Ultimately, there's not much point making the door so secure when the windows are all single glazed

Finally, a door bell/camera... Not terribly period but a useful addition that would hopefully help solve the occasional lost package and unwanted visitor problem. I was looking at Eufy - anyone have any experience in an old house with solid walls or making the unit look less obtrusive?

Thanks for any ideas.

Matt

I forgot to add, looks like good work btw.

 

[overlander matt]

It might be tempting to paint it up with eyes and a mouth as my daughter has requested during the priming/undercoat phase. I do like the sound of an evil eye in the middle panel even if the conservation officer won't...

As for the lock, I'm struggling to justify the expense right now on a door we'll rarely use. As much as I would like a great lock... Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?

https://www.doorhandlecompany.co.uk...6jIRoyXRGJj8C6mDeRQxjRMcDbNyMaWxoCVkQQAvD_BwE

At £400 it's a bit more reasonable than the £700 I came across when I checked Banhams previously!

Without wishing to alert the local crims (who are probably not PPUK regulars), the large single glazed windows to the side of the front door are a far easier entry point so I do wonder whether the money is better spent on other deterents.

As for the van repairs, I can sympathize over the Surrey potholes. Having spent a few years living in Cranleigh we would get several punctures every year. I don't think I've had one since we moved away.

The door repairs are coming along ok thanks. I'm still waiting to get hold of the timber for the replacement plinth blocks. The local joinery has a suitable length to cut me a couple of blocks but it's at the bottom of a massive stack that didn't look too accessible... Hopefully I'll be able to get some pimer/undercoat on over the next couple of days while the weather is good.

 

[Me!]

Finally, a door bell/camera... Not terribly period but a useful addition that would hopefully help solve the occasional lost package and unwanted visitor problem. I was looking at Eufy - anyone have any experience in an old house with solid walls or making the unit look less obtrusive?

Not a doorbell camera, but I've had a Eufy Solocam for the past year and I'm very happy with it. It's mounted at 1st floor window height to cover the front drive. I have the "human detection" option turned on and I think we've only had one false alarm where it was triggered in error, and maybe three or four times when people have managed to sneak past at the very edge of its range without being detected. Our front wall is 9" solid brick and we have mesh wifi so I can't be sure which wireless access point it is connected to. One access point is just inside the front wall but about 10' away to the side so that is almost 10' of solid brick in its signal path, and another is roughly straight back from the camera but the direct line would require the signal to go through a large brick chimney stack that serves two back to back inglenooks. However it has connected itself though, it has been totally reliable so far.

 

[overlander matt]

That's good to know - thank you Me! We also have a mesh system but ours doesn't work too well. The 100Mbs at the router drops massively with the internal brick walls here and I've not invested the effort to optimise the performance yet...

 

[Me!]

Ah, just to be clear, I'm using 2.4GHz mesh WiFi, not the 5GHz. In this house 5GHz is absolutely rubbish as it can't penetrate any of the walls, so I've turned it off. My 2.4GHz WiFi is rated at 400Mb/s, so is more than fast enough for my needs.

 

[Toby Newell]

Not a doorbell camera, but I've had a Eufy Solocam for the past year and I'm very happy with it. It's mounted at 1st floor window height to cover the front drive. I have the "human detection" option turned on and I think we've only had one false alarm where it was triggered in error, and maybe three or four times when people have managed to sneak past at the very edge of its range without being detected. Our front wall is 9" solid brick and we have mesh wifi so I can't be sure which wireless access point it is connected to. One access point is just inside the front wall but about 10' away to the side so that is almost 10' of solid brick in its signal path, and another is roughly straight back from the camera but the direct line would require the signal to go through a large brick chimney stack that serves two back to back inglenooks. However it has connected itself though, it has been totally reliable so far.

Eufy recently found to be viewing unencrypted videos from customers webcams, just FYI, see youtube, is worse, I think these were uploaded to the cloud. I guess if you don't live on the youtubes / tech press, then you might of missed it, but it's basically the absolute worst thing you could possibly imagine, if those sort of shenanigans bother you.

 

[Toby Newell]

It might be tempting to paint it up with eyes and a mouth as my daughter has requested during the priming/undercoat phase. I do like the sound of an evil eye in the middle panel even if the conservation officer won't...

As for the lock, I'm struggling to justify the expense right now on a door we'll rarely use. As much as I would like a great lock... Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?

https://www.doorhandlecompany.co.uk...6jIRoyXRGJj8C6mDeRQxjRMcDbNyMaWxoCVkQQAvD_BwE

At £400 it's a bit more reasonable than the £700 I came across when I checked Banhams previously!

Without wishing to alert the local crims (who are probably not PPUK regulars), the large single glazed windows to the side of the front door are a far easier entry point so I do wonder whether the money is better spent on other deterents.

As for the van repairs, I can sympathize over the Surrey potholes. Having spent a few years living in Cranleigh we would get several punctures every year. I don't think I've had one since we moved away.

The door repairs are coming along ok thanks. I'm still waiting to get hold of the timber for the replacement plinth blocks. The local joinery has a suitable length to cut me a couple of blocks but it's at the bottom of a massive stack that didn't look too accessible... Hopefully I'll be able to get some pimer/undercoat on over the next couple of days while the weather is good.

FYI the pothole was in Kent, half a metre wide and over 6 inches deep, snapped a 50kg Sprinter leaf spring clean in two and collapsed the ball joint. I reported it as an emergency, apparently it had been reported several times before and badly repaired. I guess £856 for me is better than possible paraplegia for an absent minded cyclist or motorcyclist.

The lock thing isn't snobbery, just an observation that a lot of modern locks are expensive rubbish. Banhams are expensive, but not rubbish. Ironically, two days after I posted that I started a new job. I went to put 'the latch on' (the button that locks the latch back) so I could unload the van and it wouldn't work. I asked the client, 'am I just being thick or is there a problem?'

'Oh no, we left it open the other day with the latch on and it blew shut and now it's broken' the lock looks new.

^^^ That sort of thing.

 

[overlander matt]

Eufy recently found to be viewing unencrypted videos from customers webcams, just FYI, see youtube, is worse, I think these were uploaded to the cloud. I guess if you don't live on the youtubes / tech press, then you might of missed it, but it's basically the absolute worst thing you could possibly imagine, if those sort of shenanigans bother you.

I was unaware of this. I have a brother in law who installs all sort of kit like this and it's his preferred option... I don't really want to pay a subscription for a door bell service with the Ring system. I'm not too fussed about the cloud use as the video will only catch people coming to the door. That really isn't a big concern for me right now.

 

[Toby Newell]

I was unaware of this. I have a brother in law who installs all sort of kit like this and it's his preferred option... I don't really want to pay a subscription for a door bell service with the Ring system. I'm not too fussed about the cloud use as the video will only catch people coming to the door. That really isn't a big concern for me right now.

Yes, it shows criminally liabilty and appalling management but in reality it's just a very unprofessional company. If their products and / or service are good value to you, it's immaterial to most people I think, if you data may not be private.