Home Security Checklist UK: 30 Things to Do This Weekend

According to the Office for National Statistics, around 340,000 domestic burglaries occur in England and Wales each year — and most are opportunistic, targeting homes that appear easy to enter. The reassuring truth is that a modest weekend’s effort can close the most common vulnerabilities in a typical UK home. This checklist gives you 30 specific, actionable tasks across five areas: doors, windows, lighting and deterrents, alarms and cameras, and daily habits. Each item is marked with its approximate cost so you can prioritise.

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Cost key: 🆓 FREE | 💰 LOW-COST (under £50) | 💎 INVESTMENT (£50+)

Doors (10 items)

• 💎 Upgrade your front door deadlock to a BS 3621 or TS007 3-Star mortice deadlock. The standard lock supplied with many UK front doors offers minimal resistance to picking or forcing. A TS007 3-Star lock (anti-snap, anti-pick, anti-drill) is the benchmark for insurance compliance and costs around £60–£120 installed.
• 💰 Add a door chain or door bar viewer to your front door. A door chain allows you to partially open the door without allowing entry — essential for answering the door to strangers. A surface-mount door bar with a spy hole costs around £15–£25.
• 💰 Fit a letterbox cage to prevent key fishing through your front door. Key fishing — using a hooked wire through the letterbox to drag keys off a hallway table — is a common and low-effort burglary method. A letterbox cage fitted inside the door costs around £10–£20 and eliminates this entirely.
• 💰 Install a door reinforcement kit (hinge bolts + door frame reinforcer). Most forced entries occur by kicking the door — the frame and hinges give way, not the lock. Door frame reinforcement strips and hinge bolts together cost around £30–£50 and dramatically increase kick resistance.
• 💰 Fit a garage door defender or lock for your up-and-over garage door. Standard garage door locking mechanisms are notoriously weak. A bolt-on garage door defender (around £30–£50) locks the door from the inside when the garage is not in use.
• 💰 Secure the door between your integral garage and the house to the same standard as an external door. If a burglar gets into the garage, the connecting door to the house is often a weak point. It should have a BS 3621 lock and be solid (not hollow-core).
• 💰 Add a high-security strike plate to your back door. Standard strike plates (the metal plate the latch engages with in the door frame) are often held in place by short screws that pull out easily. Replace with a heavy-duty strike plate fixed with 75mm+ screws into the structural frame.
• 🆓 Check that all UPVC door handle mechanisms are in good working order. UPVC multipoint locks rely on the handle lifting correctly to engage all hooks. A stiff or worn handle often means the hooks aren’t fully engaging — the door looks locked but isn’t. Test it now.
• 💰 Secure a side gate or alley gate with a quality padlock and security hasp. Side gates provide concealed access to the rear of the property — exactly what a burglar wants. A CEN 4 padlock and security hasp costs around £30–£60 and removes this easy route. See our padlock guide for specific recommendations.
• 🆓 Mark your valuable tools in the garage with UV pen and photograph them for insurance. UV-marked tools are easier to recover if stolen and more likely to be prosecuted. Takes 10 minutes.

Windows (5 items)

• 💰 Fit sash jammers to every openable ground-floor window. Sash jammers are the quickest window security upgrade available — they fit any window type, require no drilling into the frame mechanism, and cost around £6–£10 each. A typical terraced house might have 6–8 ground-floor openable windows, making this a £50–£80 job.
• 💎 Replace standard cockspur handles on PVCu windows with key-locking versions. Standard PVCu window handles offer minimal security. Key-locking replacement handles cost £12–£20 each and activate the same multipoint locking system — just with a keyed requirement. These satisfy most insurer requirements for window security.
• 💰 Add cable restrictors to upper-floor windows accessible from roof extensions or bay roofs. Upper windows that can be reached from a flat roof, extension, or wheelie bin are a realistic entry route. A Jackloc or similar cable restrictor costs around £20 per window and limits opening to a safe, non-climbable gap.
• 🆓 Check all window catches are in good working order and close properly. PVCu window hinges wear over time, leaving the window slightly ajar even when the handle is closed. Test every window by pushing firmly from outside (with the handle closed) — any movement indicates a worn hinge or misaligned multipoint that needs attention.
• 💰 Apply security film to ground-floor glazed panels. Security film doesn’t prevent glass from breaking but holds it together, making entry through a glazed door or window panel significantly slower. Self-adhesive security film costs around £15–£30 per roll and can be cut to size.

Lights and Deterrents (5 items)

• 💰 Install a motion-activated security light over the front door and rear access. A PIR floodlight covering the front door and driveway is one of the most cost-effective deterrents available. A wired 20W LED floodlight with PIR costs around £25–£50 at B&Q or Screwfix and can be fitted in under an hour with a basic lighting circuit connection.
• 💰 Add timed indoor lights or a smart plug timer to create occupancy illusion when away. A simple plug-in timer (around £8–£15) on a living-room lamp set to switch on at dusk is one of the oldest deterrents available — and it still works. Smart plug systems like TP-Link Kasa or Amazon Smart Plug allow random patterns from your phone.
• 🆓 Remove ladder, wheelie bin, or garden furniture positioned near first-floor windows. A ladder stored against the side of the house, or a wheelie bin under a window, provides easy climbing access. Move anything that could be used as a step away from windows and unsecured outbuildings.
• 💰 Fit a visible alarm bell box — even if you don’t yet have a full alarm system. Research by the College of Policing confirms that visible alarm boxes have a deterrence effect on opportunist burglars. A dummy bell box costs around £15; a genuine one for a DIY alarm system costs around £30–£50.
• 💰 Put up Neighbourhood Watch and Secured by Design stickers. Stickers in windows showing scheme membership are a recognised low-cost deterrent. They’re free from your local Neighbourhood Watch coordinator and help signal that the street is watchful.

Alarms and Cameras (5 items)

• 💎 Install a graded alarm system from an NSI or SSAIB-approved company. The most effective single security upgrade for most UK homes. A professionally installed, monitored Grade 2 alarm from an approved installer typically costs £500–£1,500 to install, but can reduce your home insurance premium by 10–20% and provides police-response capability in some areas. See our best home alarm systems UK guide for options.
• 💎 Add a video doorbell with local recording. A video doorbell captures footage of anyone who approaches the front door — a significant deterrent and a useful evidence source. Look for models with local SD card recording as a backup in case cloud storage is interrupted. Expect to pay £80–£200 for a quality model.
• 💎 Install an outdoor security camera covering the rear of the property. Rear gardens are the most common approach route for burglars who have identified a property as a target. A weatherproof IP65-rated camera covering the rear access costs £50–£150 for a quality model. Our best outdoor security cameras UK guide covers the top choices.
• 💰 Set up cloud or off-site backup for camera footage. A camera that stores footage only on a device inside the house could have its recording stolen alongside the valuables. Use a camera with cloud backup, or store an NVR/DVR in a locked cabinet away from the obvious areas of the house.
• 💰 Test your smoke and CO alarms and check their battery status. Not strictly a burglary measure, but a critical safety check that takes two minutes. UK fire services recommend testing alarms weekly. If any are over 10 years old, replace them — sensor sensitivity degrades over time.

Habits (5 items)

• 🆓 Lock doors and windows every time you leave, even for five minutes. This sounds obvious but ONS data consistently shows that roughly one in three UK burglaries involves no forced entry. A quick garden trip with the back door open is all the opportunity a passing opportunist needs.
• 🆓 Never leave keys on a hook near the front door or visible from outside. Keys within sight of a window or accessible through a letterbox are an invitation. Keep spare keys in a drawer or a coded key safe, not on a hallway hook.
• 🆓 Cancel or redirect post and deliveries before going on holiday. A pile of post visible through a letterbox or door panel is one of the clearest signs of an empty property. Royal Mail offers a Keepsafe service; ask a trusted neighbour to check for parcels.
• 🆓 Avoid posting holiday plans on public social media until after you return. UK Police forces have repeatedly flagged social media as a source of intelligence for organised burglary gangs. Set your posts to friends-only at minimum; ideally wait until you’re back to share holiday photos.
• 🆓 Register your valuables on Immobilise.com — the UK’s national property register. Registering serial numbers on Immobilise (free) dramatically increases the chance that stolen items are returned if recovered by police. It takes 15 minutes for a whole household’s valuables and costs nothing.

Summary Table

If you can only do one thing this weekend, fit sash jammers to your ground-floor windows and a letterbox cage to your front door — two low-cost improvements that close common opportunist entry routes in under an hour. For a more comprehensive approach to protecting the whole home, our how to secure your home UK guide goes deeper on each area.