Design & Build Experts Since 1956. Over 11,450 Clients Served

Best-in-class solutions for deterring thieves and improving home guardianship

OakWood offers a comprehensive range of services and individual point solutions for ensuring your home is both secure and safe from various threats. These can include breaking and entering, extreme weather, fire, terrorists, biohazards, cyberattacks, and others. The reality is that today, the security options available for your home are extensive. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the many options available for protecting your home. OakWood’s Safe Home services cut through the clutter of irrelevant options and complicated technology to provide an objective analysis of your home and the protection systems that will be most relevant and beneficial. OakWood continually assesses security and safety solutions and only recommends the top rated brands based on criteria that includes reliability, ease of use, independent reviews, customer testimonials, price to value, and ultimately effectiveness – do they work as promised?

We can incorporate state-of-the-art home security and safety solutions into a Design & Build plan for a new custom home or renovation or as a standalone service for an existing home. Book a preliminary free consultation or call us at 613 236-8001.

John Liptak

“We can assess points of vulnerability and provide tasteful, unobtrusive security and safety recommendations tailored to your threat concerns and home security goals.”

– John Liptak, President & CEO, OakWood

OakWood Homes – Safe and Secure by Design

Solutions for deterring, detecting, denying, delaying, and defending

Security Assessments

OakWood conducts tailored security assessments to identify your integrated security needs to protect what’s important to you. Our analysis will identify points of vulnerability based on your home’s location, age, and design.

OakWood’s assessment gives you a detailed report that covers key areas of concern including vulnerable access points, lighting issues, obstacle considerations, reviews of any existing alarm systems, the value of CCTV installation and monitoring systems, incident management processes, and others.

Applied Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) Principles

OakWood home designs incorporate the principles of natural surveillance and access control to optimize your property’s security. CPTED is a proactive crime prevention strategy that uses design to eliminate or reduce criminal behavior by creating the perception or reality of effective home guardianship.

The key idea behind CPTED is to identify and lower the curb appeal of your home to thieves and create a climate of safety that discourages criminals. OakWood applies CPTED principles to a customized crime risk assessment of your home and makes recommendations for modifications that will reduce your risk. These can include removal of trees and shrubs that obstruct your home (creating the perfect hiding place and cover for criminals) or conversely adding thorny yet attractive shrubs;opportunities for the installation of fencing with a lockable gate, areas that will benefit from bright security lighting, solid core doors with deadbolts, and various other CEPTD home security strategies aimed at deterring thieves.

Concealed Safe/Panic Rooms

OakWood offers a wide range of innovative options for Safe/Panic Rooms to provide shelter and peace-of-mind for you and your loved ones during a crisis. A safe/panic room can be the equivalent of a mini-fortress that will withstand home invasions and provide an impregnable location for comfortably waiting for law enforcement help to arrive.

A safe/panic room does not need to be an ugly, claustrophobic, and spartan bunker. OakWood specializes in the planning, design, and building of attractive and well equipped safe/panic rooms that enable you and family members to quickly retreat to a comfortable place with the certain knowledge that you are completely safe and secure. Our safe/panic rooms can also introduce any level of luxury you can imagine while enabling you to sit out short or long-term threats that can include home invasion, bio-hazards, terrorist attacks, extreme weather, and others.

Visit our Panic Rooms page in Renovation Experts for more detailed information on this very specialized Design & Build service from OakWood.

Single Point Solutions

A variety of specific tactical level solutions can be used to bolster or reinforce your home’s safety features. Many of these security options are used with other systems to provide an integrated complete security solution for your home.

Reinforced Windows and Doors

OakWood offers a range of elegant, reinforced windows and doors for added security. The fact is most thieves target homes that simply look easier to break into. The majority gain entry through the front door, either by opening an unlocked door or by simply kicking-in the door gaining entry with little sophistication in seconds. First floor windows are the second most common access points.

Door solutions include sturdy deadbolts and interior locks, reinforced door frames, and solid steel doors that are more likely to dent when kicked or abused. Window solutions include upgraded window locks, steel window bars, and reinforced tempered glass. Both door and window solutions for improved security benefit from additional outdoor, motion detected security lighting and cameras.

Security Surveillance and Detection

OakWood can equip your home with state-of-the-art security surveillance and detection systems to monitor your home and property. The focus is always on securing and monitoring key entry points such as doors and windows. Most solutions involve combinations of hardware connected to monitoring services that call enforcement or emergency responders if your system is triggered. Basic hardware starts with sensors that detect when a door or window is opened – or a loud, glass break noise is detected.

Interior and exterior motion sensors are a common addition to most security systems. These can also be connected to a high-decibel alarm or sirens. Interior and exterior cameras for monitoring, recording, and storing footage – accessed through mobile apps adds to your peace of mind. Smart home connectivity can also give the ability to remotely control your security system in addition to various home features including thermostats, lights, and appliances. Affordable, professional self-monitoring security systems with the option to watch live feeds are also options.

Security Fencing

Security fence and gate options can also be used as part of a layered security design to protect your home, family, and pets. While electric fences are not legal on residential property, a broad range of decorative steel fences can be used to discourage intruders.

Permits are not needed unless you are creating a swimming pool enclosure however there are height restrictions in Ottawa for front and backyard fences. You can erect a security fence of roughly two meters between neighbors and to enclose a backyard and no more than 1 meter in the front yard. OakWood can provide specific recommendations for appealing fences that will enhance the curb appeal of your property while discouraging would be burglars from attempting to gain entry or finding places to hide.

Security Lighting

OakWood can help you choose from a range of tasteful security lighting solutions to complement any existing surveillance systems, add extra safety while accenting your home and property. There are many powerful LED outdoor options for providing dusk to dawn or timed coverage, and Hi/Low combination motion activated lighting. Key features OakWood recommends for a cohesive lighting solution include motion detection, adjustable timing – you may not want dusk to dawn coverage or you may want to adjust the duration on high intensity light when motion is detected – and a back up power source, usually a rechargeable battery. Traditional floodlamps, spotlights, hardwired and battery powered light systems, solar lights, and motion activated systems are all considerations for a total solution.

Emergency Communications

OakWood offers a range of emergency communication systems to provide reliable 24/7 communications. These systems can include rechargeable battery powered home intercom systems, the ability to get real-time emergency information from local authorities, and two-way communication with the ability to contact others during a disaster situation. Some of these systems are powered by solar panels to provide communication capabilities even when the grid goes down. Voice over Internet Protocol, land lines, satellite phones, two-way radios, in addition to conventional landlines and cellphones can be included in a cohesive emergency communication system for maximizing your potential to connect with others during any crisis while receiving valuable public updates, reports, and posted announcements.

Fire and Life Safety Systems

Not surprisingly ceiling mounted, battery powered smoke detectors are a key component for protecting your home from fire. These should be installed throughout your home including hallways, common rooms, kitchen bedrooms, and lower levels or basement. These can also be augmented with strobe lights to alert loved ones of an immediate threat, fire blankets, and fire safety ladders. Portable dry chemical fire extinguishers should also be in key areas of the home and used to quell small fires. Similarly, carbon monoxide detection systems must be mounted in key areas of your home.

Fire detection devices that trigger fire alarms systems can also trigger automatic sprinkler systems that when activated can contain the spread of a fire until fire protection services can reach your home. OakWood can recommend an integrated system providing specific recommendations on the type of systems, number of devices, and locations including periodic checks to ensure all equipment will perform as required.

Counter Surveillance Technical Inspection

OakWood’s Technical Surveillance Counter Measure professionals can conduct residential inspections to effectively detect and neutralize technical threats. For most residential situations this involves inspecting all services and equipment to assess potential points of vulnerability and to ensure all systems are operating to manufacturer and safety standards.

For commercial properties or if you are involved with classified activities including National Security, these inspections will include highly specialized equipment to identify security breaches and detect eavesdropping or spy devices such as hidden microphones, bugs, or cameras. These devices are often hidden inside various home or office products including smoke alarms, table lamps, desk phones, wall clocks, USB chargers, and others. Our team will conduct a deep search of your home or commercial location to detect and professionally remove any eavesdropping devices to ensure or restore complete privacy.

Cyber Security

OakWood Cyber Security professionals can conduct cyber security assessments to identify your integrated cyber security needs and to protect your personal data and privacy.

The goal is to identify potential points of vulnerability and provide recommendations for defending your computers, mobile devices, network(s) and any electronic systems including servers from malicious attacks. OakWood can recommend a range of cloud based and on-premises solutions for improving the security resilience of your devices, data, network, and applications.

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