How do I make a garage door more secure?

A garage is often the softest opening on a house and the one with the most valuable contents — bikes, tools, a freezer, and frequently a door straight into the hall. It is also the opening people think about last. The measures are cheap and none of them involve touching the springs.

Safety

What you'll need

• Garage door side locks or a pair of hasps and closed-shackle padlocks
• A defender lock or ground-anchored bar (optional)
• A rated lock for the connecting door
• Cable ties or a shroud for an external release cord (optional)

Step by step

1. Look at how the door is currently held.Most up-and-over doors latch at a single central point, which means the two bottom corners are held only by the frame geometry. Adding a locking point each side changes the whole picture.
2. Fit side locks or bolts at the bottom corners.Purpose-made garage door side locks bolt through the door frame into the floor or the jamb. On a canopy door, a pair of hasps with closed-shackle padlocks does the same job. Closed shackle matters — it leaves nothing to get a tool onto.
3. Consider a garage defender for a detached garage.A hooped bar set into the drive in front of the door, with its own closed-shackle lock. It physically prevents the door being raised and it is visible from the street, which is half the point.
4. Check an electric opener's emergency release.Powered doors have a manual release inside. If yours has an external key release, make sure it is a proper lock and that the cord inside cannot be reached through a gap. Fitting a shroud or repositioning the cord is a small job with a large effect.
5. Treat the connecting door into the house as an external door.It is one, in every sense that matters, and it is very often a hollow internal door with a cheap latch. A solid-core door, a rated lock, long screws in the keep and preferably a self-closer — and check whether the building regulations for your nation require it to be a fire door in your layout.
6. Block the view in.Obscure film or a blind on any garage window, and do not leave the door open while working if the contents are visible from the road. Nobody targets a garage without knowing it is worth it.
7. Anchor the valuable items inside.Bikes, a mower or a motorbike chained to a floor or wall anchor, not just to each other. Anything that cannot leave quickly is much less attractive.
8. Light and alarm the approach.A PIR light on the garage frontage and a cheap standalone door alarm inside. Noise and light are what a person working out of sight is trying to avoid.
9. Check your insurance treats the garage the way you assume.Many policies cap cover for outbuildings and detached garages, and some require a specific lock type. Read the wording before storing anything expensive in there.

Tips

• Never leave the up-and-over handle unlocked because it is stiff. Lubricate the mechanism instead — a door that is hard to lock stops being locked.
• If the garage has an internal light, put it on the same circuit habit as the house: a lit garage at 2am is noticeable, a dark one is not.
• A remote control left in a car parked on the drive undoes everything else. Take it inside.

Common mistakes

• Relying on the single central latch — It leaves both bottom corners held only by the door's shape. Two side locks convert one point of restraint into three for a small amount of money.
• Leaving a hollow internal door between garage and house — Once inside the garage, someone is out of sight and unhurried. That connecting door is doing the job of a front door and is usually specified as if it were a bedroom door.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask