Have you ever wondered about the strength under attack of the safety gates you’ve had installed? This should be the first question you ask your sales consultant, but often it comes way behind queries about price. Why does strength matter? We’ll show you why in attack tests we recently carried out on some of our top selling products.
STRENGTH BUYS YOU TIME
Trellidor is a responsible security barrier manufacture and we would never make the false claim that physical barriers are impenetrable. Given the right tools, enough time and determination, home invaders will get through just about anything.
If you put strong enough barriers in their way, however, it heightens the criminal’s risk of discovery as well as failure, which is exactly why you should consider choosing strength over any other factors in your purchasing decision.
No standard testing in SA for safety gates
Comparing safety gates in South Africa is problematic, though, because there is no recognised body to carry out independent, standardized tests. Anecdotal evidence of strength used in advertising can be misleading, so Trellidor uses established international testing standards.
These tests were developed by the internationally recognised Loss Prevention Certification Board (LPCB). This is an independent, third party certification body that is trusted by manufacturers and customers in the fire protection and security industries worldwide.
The LPCB has certified two of our top of the range Trellidor Retractable safety gates, so we’re very familiar with their stringent testing procedures. We used these tests, and others used by the SA Insurance Association, on a Trellidor Retractable T700 safety gate; a Trellidor Rollerstyle aluminium shutter; and a Trellidor Clear Guard security screen.
Putting our safety gates to the test
The safety gates we used in our strength test are exactly the same as the ones we fit in people’s homes. The difference in the test situation is that the safety gates bore the full brunt of the tests there was no door confronting our substitute robbers behind the gate, as you’d find in a home.
Our test robbers also attacked each safety gate with a whole arsenal of weapons including a shoulder charge, kicks using safety boots, a spade, crowbar and sledge hammer. In reality, it is highly unlikely that robbers would arrive with, or find by chance on your property, as many weapons as these.
Nor would they have the time to use all of them, one after the other as we did. They’d make far too much noise and attract unwelcome attention, as you’ll hear in the videos.
Each of our safety gates took the assaults really well, and although they were undoubtedly damaged, our surrogate burglars were unable to make an opening big enough to actually get through the safety gate and into the house.
The damaged Trellidor Clear Guard screen was especially interesting: the ripped steel mesh screen had such sharp teeth that you’d be ripped to shreds trying to get through the hole.
Take a look at our attack test videos and see for yourself why safety gate strength matters.
