The house I’m about to move to has a detached garage: lovely looking stone built thing with an arched doorway and timber double doors…..

….which are bloody useless. Not sealed, insulated or in the slightest bit secure. The garage has a side door which will be fine for getting bikes in and out, so I’ll rarely use the big door, but may want to in the future so don’t want to brick it up.

Wondering if the best option would be a roller-shutter door on the inside of the doorway, but leave the timber doors on the outside for cosmetic reasons. Anyone done this before?

Also, anyone any recommendations for an alarm system?

Can you add some kind of baton (or two) across the back of the main, wooden doors? Would stop them being forced in the middle.

These guys do a variety of security products which might help – grills, security bars, metal door facings etc.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sheffield_architectural_metalworkers/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Depends how paranoid and well insured you are.

I’ve kept my bikes in sheds so bad the wooden frame had rotted away and the remaining mix of asbestos panels and corrugated steel were somehow self supporting so that if you opened the plywood doors the whole thing shifted 6″ to the left!

But it had a padlock and the bikes were insured so I was happy at that.

If some scrote wants to get in they’ll manage it, there was a story on here of someone being burgled and they’d removed the rear brick wall rather than force the (well secured) door in view of the street!

Yeah, thought a simple steel bar or two across the back of the door would do as a stop-gap, but I’d be worried the doors could still be lifted off hinges or torn apart. And given the amount of fresh-air that can get through them, it’ll be drafty in there on a winter’s evening, so new doors have their appeal.

I guess I could secure them with steel-work, and line, seal and insulate them, but would that be less cost-efficient?

Theyll go through roof, lift a few slates and thyre in.

Reinforce doors from inside and baton out roof inside with osb boards and wire mesh

project – Member
Theyll go through roof, lift a few slates and thyre in.

Reinforce doors from inside and baton out roof inside with osb boards and wire mesh
Yep, they will…

They did that to me. In fairness, the security I had was mainly designed to prevent my motorbike going through the door (large steel bars bolted across the door from the inside with big protected locks), so when they came through the roof I hadn’t thought about my tools in their (unlocked) rollcab or the bike parts that were hung on the wall!

I’d add extra joists to close up the gaps before screwing up ply, rather than adding a mesh.

Unfortunately to beat a thieving scum bag scrote you have to think like one

If I wasn’t going to use the main doors I’d batten across them then I’d build a stud wall inside and face it internally with osb board or ply. Always useful to have another wall to fix stuff to.