Reinforcing apartment wooden door on a budget

[nickb99]

Need to reinforce a friend's apartment door on a tight budget. Its unglazed and fairly solid, not hollow but not great. It has four strong hinges and a decent lock. We are going to add deadlocks top and bottom plus metal reinforcing down the hinge and lock jambs. I'll know more about the construction when we fit the locks.

My only question is to protect the door from breaking up the middle if kicked. The cheap local options seem to be either a 1.5mm steel plate across the entire back of the door, fixed all around, and painted. Or some 5mm steel flat bars, maybe 5 or so, 25mmx760mm, fitted across the door back horizontally. Which sounds better?

I know that a determined burglar will get through anything, we just need to do the best job with the budget.

Hope this is the right place to post this. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[phatboy]

Sheet of ply over the inside of the door?

 

[nickb99]

The hinges do seem strong, so I am not worried about adding a little weight to the door. You think ply (9mm?) would do a better job of stopping it splitting down the middle from a kick than 1.5mm steel? I guess the ply is a little flexible which might be a benefit.