Apart from our vehicles, we keep all types of valuable things in our garages, from gym equipment to mountain bikes, kids' toys and electronic items, to tools and furniture. And it’s for this reason your garage is a prime target for thieves.
To help in the fight against garage thieves, we’ve written this short article listing 4 common ways thieves break into garages and some of the best ways to secure your garage to help prevent becoming a victim of this crime.
Most thieves aren’t known for their ‘intelligence’, but unfortunately, garage thieves are thinking up more ingenious ways to break into your garage. The following is a list of some of the more common methods used:
This method of breaking into your garage only works on manually operated, up and over garage doors, and is a method of forcibly pulling and pushing the door in order to pop the locking mechanism out of its fastening or bracket.
This method of breaking into your garage mostly involves brute force with the help of a crowbar or similar implement to break the panels of your garage door, and if the thief is experienced they’ll know exactly which panels to target.
This method of breaking into garages works on swing garage doors and involves tapping out the hinge pins, then simply lifting the garage door off its hinges and swinging it open or just squeezing through the gap.
By being laissez-faire about locking up your garage, you allow thieves to simply walk in unchallenged. And sadly, not locking a garage door is one of the most common ways thieves get their hands on people's precious possessions.
As with the security of anything, it's not possible to remove the threat of a garage break-in completely, but listed below are 5 tried and tested ways you can make it as difficult as possible for burglars and help prevent it from happening to you.
Not all garage doors are created equally - a cheap garage door; fitted incorrectly and made from a weak material is going to be much more susceptible to being broken into.
Quality manufacturers like Hormann and Garador have developed sophisticated additional security measures to make breaking into their garage doors much more difficult for potential thieves. These include developments like rotary catch locks on up-and-over garage doors that fix the corners of the garage door to the frame and make it nearly impossible to force the door open. Or anti-lift kits to automatically lock the door and also prevent it from being forced open.
If you couple this with a garage door made from a sturdy material, without weak points, and fitted by a professional, it makes life much more difficult for anyone thinking of breaking in.
Look out for the Secured by Design (SBD) logo when shopping for a garage door. This is the official police security initiative in the United Kingdom with the aim of reducing crime through products designed with security in mind.
Whether they're composite garage doors, hardwood garage doors, up and over garage doors, side-hinged garage doors or canopy garage doors, by automating you add an extra level of security, as the automation device i.e. the motor, will keep the door tightly closed until it receives a signal to open.
Understandably, thieves like to work under the cover of darkness. So, by installing a state-of-the-art security lighting system, any would-be thief will think twice about breaking in – unless they’ve always dreamed of being in the spotlight.
Even a bank vault can be broken into if a thief is given enough time. An alarm system is an extremely important security measure to couple with a strong, secure garage door as it puts the pressure on thieves by drawing attention to them and increasing the risk that they will be caught and arrested if they can't break in quickly.
If you have a good lock on your garage, which you probably will have if you’ve brought your garage door from a reputable supplier, make sure to use it, and don’t get into the habit of not bothering, even if you live in a very quiet area.
Want more garage door security tips? - check out our original blog on garage door security.
If you’re looking for more advice on garage door security, contact Garage Doors Ltd. today. We have over 50 years’ experience in the design, manufacture, installation and repair of all types of high-quality garage doors and cover areas throughout all of London, Herts, Beds, Bucks and beyond.
