Window bars are a popular way of deterring potential break-ins to your home, but they come with some significant downsides. If you're considering having window bars put over your windows to keep your loved ones and property safe, you might want to reconsider that position. An alternative can provide you with a similar level of protection and without the downsides that window bars can present.
Safety Risk
Window bars do an excellent job of keeping people out of your home, but sometimes, they can keep people from getting out of your home, too. While window bar release mechanisms exist, these are often too difficult for the elderly and young children to operate. As a result, window bars can pose a deadly risk if there's an emergency indoors and the windows are the only way to escape. While no one wants to think about the possibility of a problem like carbon monoxide poisoning or a fire in one's home, there's always a risk of it happening, and those window bars could mean the difference between only losing property or losing human lives.
Property Value
Another problem with window bars is that they can have a significant impact on the appearance and property value of your home. Many neighbors frown on having window bars, as it gives an outward appearance that there's a crime problem in your area, even if there isn't one. As a result, it can make it harder to sell your home, or even for your neighbors to sell their homes. This can cause problems between you and your neighbors, and poses a problem if you ever want to sell your home in the future. In addition, these bars are outright outlawed by some homeowner's associations for the visual blight it puts on the rest of the neighborhood.
The Alternative
While adding a security system or something similar to your house can help protect you, there's nothing quite like having a physical barrier between you and any person who wants to break in. The alternative you should look into is impact resistant windows. Impact resistant windows are designed to be resilient in the face of extreme pressure, like the kind created by natural weather events, but also by attempted break-ins. While it's not a 100% guarantee, neither are window bars.
Impact resistant windows can make it considerably harder for someone to break through your window, and even if they try, they'll make a lot more noise and take more time to do so. Sneakily breaking into your home will become downright impossible, and if combined with a security system, your home will be extremely safe without the problems that window bars can cause.
