How to make your up and over garage door more secure

Your garage is the place where you store a whole horde of some of your most prized and expensive possessions, from your car, motorbike or bicycle (that might cover all the prized stuff, but perhaps not!) to all of your tools and hardware for your work, and as such it is absolutely essential that you can rest assured no matter if you’re away on holiday or simply asleep in bed that your goods are safe.

So in an effort to help you protect your goods from potential break-ins, here are our top tips on how to make your garage door more secure.

The Basics

If you’re serious about protecting your possessions from potential theft, you’ll need to start by making sure you aren’t advertising your garage as an easy target for thieves to hit.

Firstly, always keep your garage shut when not in use, avoiding leaving it open unnecessarily for extended periods of time while you may be gardening and the lark but not physically in the garage. You would be surprised how quiet and fast thieves can be, sneaking in and taking off with your goods leaving you none the wiser in the blink of an eye. The key to their success in times like these comes from identifying viable targets from afar and only moving in once they know they’ll succeed, so don’t advertise your property as an easy steal.

Likewise, you should always weigh up what has to be kept in the garage and what can be kept in the house or elsewhere instead. Storing expensive items in the garage needlessly can increase the likelihood of your garage becoming a target. Wherever something could instead be stored in the house, you should consider doing so. But wherever this isn’t feasible, ensure that your possessions are locked up tight in the garage, providing an extra level of security that will make it difficult for thieves to quickly make off with your goods (for instance, you could chain your bicycles together to make them impossible to ride without doing rid of the chain).

Installing Locking Garage Door Bolts

Readily available, locking garage door bolt kits consist of a couple of locking mechanisms and keys that fit at either side of the bottom part of your garage door to secure it into the frame or the floor from both sides. You will need a drill to install the bolts and to fix them in place, but once in they can exponentially increase the security of your garage door.

The bolts are compatible with most types of garage doors though they are particularly suited to work with up and over designs. Moreover, while your garage door may already have a working locking mechanism in place, the installation of these additional bolts can’t hurt how secure your property is. Access can also be gained from both the inside and outside, so if you can access the garage internally you may consider not drilling external keyholes into the garage door to further improve security.

Garage Door Defenders

These security devices help to send a message to burglars that you take the security of your property seriously. They feature a bar and a base plate that ensures your garage door cannot be opened beyond the bar, a few millimetres at best. The base plate is fixed to the ground securely and when the bar is not padlocked onto the base plate the garage door can swing up and over freely.

Security Lights

If there is anything a burglar fears most it’s being caught in the act. Installing motion activated lights around your garage will serve to freeze an intruder in their tracks for fear of being spotted and identified by you or your neighbours. Though this doesn’t necessarily make your garage door physically more secure, it sends the message that burglars are not welcome on your property.

Alarms

Motion sensor alarms are an apt choice for securing both your home and your garage. An alarm system in your garage can either work by detecting movement inside your garage or by detecting a break in the connection between your garage door and its frame. You can rest assured with an alarm installed in your garage that even if your garage is broken into, whoever has got in there won’t go unnoticed, or unpunished.

Dimension Garage Doors have specialised in providing high quality automated and manual garage doors that are reliable and affordable throughout the North West of England for over 20 years. For more information on services including supplying, installing, maintenance and repairs of garage doors, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.