Are these doors installed correctly, and are they secure as they are?

Question

I hired a contractor to install 2 prehung fiberglass exterior doors in my home and I'm not sure if he measured incorrectly, but both doors have at least 1-1.25" of gap space on the sides between the frame & studs. Both doors also sit about 3/4" inch back, so the hinges are merely screwed into the door frame and won't even reach the stud without about 3" of length and some angling. The door jamb also sits a 1/2" behind the drywall, causing the molding to not lie flush with the door. One door is 30" with a 34" rough opening and the other is 36" with a 40" r.o.

I have 3 questions:

1. Are both doors too small for my entryway?
2. Does this pose some security risks of being easily kicked in?
3. How can this be remedied? Order larger doors, add fillers between the gaps?

Answer 1

With those rough opening sizes, I would have stepped up the door sizes a bit, 32" in a 34" r.o., and 38" in a 40" r.o. You need some space to plumb and level, but 4" is overkill. I tend to install the door as close as possible on the hinge side to the framing (shimming it out for plumb and possibly raising it a bit to keep the top level). I also use a few 3" screws through the hinges to reduce sagging, which also improves security. On the latch side, I shim behind the strike plate and dead bolt opening, and use 3" screws over there directly to the framing. Any door that doesn't have long screws into the framing is a higher risk for being kicked in, but that's honestly a majority of doors out there these days, security seems to be an upgrade.

For the jamb depth, if you can't find a door with the correct depth for your home, sometimes you can get a deeper jamb and cut it back with a table saw. But the easier solution is to get one a little too small and add a piece of filler trim on the inside to make the jamb flush with the drywall and the install the casing over that. I wouldn't even try to line that filler up perfectly to hide the seam, instead give it a 1/16-1/8" reveal and do the same with the casing on top of the filler. The multiple reveals will give it some depth and decent look where trying to conceal the seam is likely to result in an ugly gap appearing several months later.