Home Garage Security

Home garage security is overlooked by most homeowners. Your garage is one of the most vulnerable points of access for unwelcome entries and thefts. The fact of the matter is… you can tremendously increase the level of protection for your home and family by taking a few steps to ensure the security of your garage.

When it comes to your home garage security, the best place to start is with the largest moving object in your home: Your garage door. If you don’t have an automatic garage door opener, then you’re truly missing out on one of the modern world’s greatest conveniences… at least in my opinion.

But if you don’t, then you probably have a manually operated key and cable lock system to lock your garage door. If this is the case, then you can go ahead and skip down to “Service Doors.” So…how much home garage security does your garage door opener provide? Probably less than you think.

There are basically two ways that a burglar can easily open your garage door:

• They can hijack your garage door remote opener code.
• They can use a coat hanger to release the safety mechanism, which frees your garage door from the opener and allows the door to open right up.

The first garage security problem is solved by rolling code technology. Ok, what the heck is rolling code technology? Well, it’s when your garage door opener and your remote automatically change their code that they talk to each other with. This ensures that thieves won’t be able to intercept the code and open your garage door. All of the major garage door opener manufacturers offer some sort of rolling code technology in most of their newer models. If you’re looking to buy a new opener, make sure it has rolling code technology!

If you have an older opener, there are some rolling code retrofit kits out there, but for the price, you may want to consider installing a brand new opener instead. The second garage security problem is low-tech, and so is the solution. Before we discuss the solution, let’s take a deeper look at the problem. If you go outside and push in the very top garage door panel where it meets the top of the garage door frame, then you’ll most likely find that you can push it in just enough to pass a coat hanger through.

The problem with this is that burglars can do the same thing and use the coat hanger to latch on to your opener’s release arm and easily disengage the garage door from your opener. If you happen to have windows in your garage door, then you’re garage is at risk! So, what can you do to protect your garage from the coat hanger trick? Cover your garage door windows. If you want to keep the light, then you can frost them with a can of spray frost from your local home improvement center. This will allow light to pass through, but no one will be able to see in from the outside.

As you can see, garage doors are vulnerable when it comes to home security. To even make things worse, we often go to sleep at night or drive away in the morning without closing the garage door. Don’t feel bad. We all do it!

There are two ways you can remedy this problem. The first is to get yourself an automatic garage door closer. The second way is to get an automatic garage door monitor. A monitor won’t close the door for you, but it will let you know if the door is open or not. We can’t discuss home garage security without taking a quick look at service doors and interior doors. A service door is a standard door that opens to the side or back of your garage. If you have a home security system, it’s a good idea to integrate your service door into the system.

If your service door has a window in it, then you may want to consider putting a broken glass sensor in your garage, that sounds a high pitched alarm if the window glass hits the floor. If your garage is attached, then you have an interior door as well. Like the service door, you should integrate your interior door with your home security system. As an additional home garage security measure, you can also install keyed deadbolts in your service door and/or interior door. You can always beef up your home garage security by adding motion detectors that turn on lights and/or alarms, as well as surveillance cameras that are monitored from their own closed loop monitor, pc, or your television’s auxiliary channel.

Last but not least…well…maybe the least expensive… you can ask your security company for warning stickers. If you don’t have a monitored security system for your home, you can still ask for stickers from most of the major home security companies.

When you tighten your home garage security, your protecting not only your garage, but your home, your family, and all of your belongings as well.