Digital locks for screen and sliding doors

Written by Magnus Aller, owner of Amco Locksmiths. WA Police-licensed security installer (licence 30629), 25 years’ experience as a locksmith in Perth, Western Australia.

Why most locks will not fit

A security screen door is a narrow aluminium frame, often only 30 to 40 millimetres of stile to work with. Most digital locks sold in shops are made for a solid timber front door 35 to 55 millimetres thick with a big backset, and they simply have nowhere to sit on a screen. That is why so many people buy a lock, get it home, and find it will not go on.

What does fit

Narrow-stile models. Lion Head’s Luxe series is made for slim and sliding doors, and Lockton’s E-Series comes in narrow lever versions for both hinged and sliding doors. Yale is the one brand with a digital lock designed to match a security screen door, which matters if you want the screen and the front door to look like they belong together.

The question people forget

If you put the keypad on the screen door, how do you get through the door behind it? Most households end up doing one of two things: putting the digital lock on the main door and leaving the screen on a key, or putting it on the screen and leaving the main door unlocked while anyone is home. Neither is wrong, but it is worth deciding before you buy rather than after.

We also just fix screen door locks

If the screen lock is simply worn out, a digital lock is not the only answer. We repair and replace Lockwood including the 8654, Whitco including the Tasman, Austral and Doric on hinged and sliding screens — see security screen door locks.

Sliding glass and patio doors

Common across Perth and usually the weakest door in the house. A sliding door has the same narrow-stile problem as a screen, plus one of its own: the failure most people should worry about is not the lock being picked, it is the door being lifted out of its track with the lock still engaged. A digital lock does nothing about that on its own.

So on a slider we look at two things — a lock that actually fits the stile, and whether the door needs something in the track or an anti-lift measure as well. Fitting a keypad to a door that can be lifted out is solving the wrong problem.

Sliding screen doors

The same again, in a lighter frame. Narrow-stile models only, and often the sensible answer is a good mechanical lock on the screen with the digital lock on the main door.

What we check before quoting

• The stile width — the flat part of the frame where a lock has to sit.
• The door thickness and the backset.
• Whether the door has dropped, stuck or come loose in its track.
• Whether you want it keyed to the key you already carry.

Two photos answer nearly all of that: the edge of the door where the bolt comes out, and the front of the current lock. Send them through and we will tell you what fits before you spend anything. More on sliding doors generally on the sliding door locks page.