4 Features To Look For In A High-Security Garage Door
Posted on: 13 May 2022
A sturdy garage door doesn't just protect the vehicles, tools, and equipment you store in your garage from the elements. It also provides an important line of defense against thieves and burglars.
If you are looking for a new garage door and you are particularly concerned about protecting your garage's valuable contents from criminals, you should make sure the door you choose provides as much security and protection as possible. Keep an eye out for the following useful security features when comparing different garage door models:
Metal Or Timber Construction
Vinyl and fiberglass garage doors may be inexpensive, but they do not provide much protection against thieves. Most of these doors can be cut through relatively easily with power tools or cutting torches, or forced open using lifting equipment or sheer brute force. A truly secure garage door should be made from timber, steel, or aluminum.
Timber garage doors are particularly useful if you want a garage door that combines high security with attractive looks. Their thick timbers are extremely difficult to cut through quickly. Timber garage doors also tend to be very heavy, making them much more difficult to lift or slide open with brute force.
Steel garage doors are also very difficult to cut through or force open but aren't as heavy as timber garage doors, so they can be integrated with an automated garage door opener more easily. Aluminum doors are more vulnerable to cutting tools than steel or timber doors, but still provide much more security than vinyl or fiberglass doors.
Secure Locks
In many cases, thieves can access a garage quickly and easily by using powerful cutting tools to simply cut the garage door's lock off or bore out the lock using drilling equipment. If you are looking for a garage door with a manual locking system, make sure that it has at least two separately keyed locks, connected to a sturdy locking bar or deadbolt that cannot be cut through easily.
If you opt for an automatic garage door with remotely activated locks, make sure that the door's activation signals are encrypted, and that these signals can be changed on a regular basis. Sophisticated thieves can 'spoof' the signals used by simpler automated systems, creating an identical signal that will open your garage door for them.
Anti-Lift Locks
If you choose a type of garage door that opens upwards, such as an up-and-over, sectional, or roller garage door, a door fitted with anti-lift locks will be much harder to force open. These devices are fitted to the door's guide rails. When the door is completely closed, they lock the door's guide wheels in place, preventing them from moving until they are unlocked manually or via remote signal.
Anti-lift locks provide extra security on top of your door's main locking system. If thieves bypass the main lock using picks, cutting torches, or other methods, these locks will still prevent the door from opening, as they must be disengaged separately before they will release the guide wheels.
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