Just thought i would get ahead and sort my gear out for a ride so went to garage and realised something wasnt right. Handle was crooked and was really stiff to turn, then looked closely and could see the handle had taken a helluva beating. Someone had clearly been hitting it trying to turn it (up and over door with central handle). Luckily it seems to have withstood the assault but now i need to beef up security. Looks like enfield door bolts seem to be the way to go but does anyone have any other ideas? I am keen diyer so open to cobbling something together budget stylee.

Replace with a roller shutter / sectional ? Not cheap but an up/over door seems to be a security nightmare. Or they could just get in via the roof 😮

In this case seems a bit of an amateur effort, folding a corner piece of the door outwards seems to be the usual attack method.

Extra lockable door frame or floor bolts add to making it more difficult, door/motion sensor alarm of course, where does it end really? Can only do so much. I put up a Swann Outback Cam discretely too outside, quite interesting to see who mooches about when you are not about – mainly wildlife and the odd delivery driver in our case.

Four of these, one near each corner;

stop them folding corners up and have to be cut to get in.

http://www.sasproducts.com/garage-door-bolts-for-up-and-over-doors-164-p.asp

Get your bikes out of there now – they’ll back tonight with some more serious kit. Fit an alarm – http://www.maplin.co.uk/search?text=garage+alarm&x=0&y=0

Can’t you set up an alarm inside the garage? Even a personal attack alarm attached to the door by a very tight lanyard?

http://www.henrykrank.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2964

People ignore alarms, less so these. Bet it would be loud in an enclosed space too.

No chance of replacing the door sadly, way too pricey. They wont get in the roof as it has about a million bolts in it and will take years to get through enough of them to create a gap.
It does seem like an amateurish attempt as i would have the handle/mechanism down as something akin to a hard cheese.

I have fitted a large bolt to the bottom corner with a padlock,its not much but its all i have. I cant get to a diy shop due to family commitments so it will have to do till the weekend. I think the enfield bolts are the only choice for me but it will mean having to reinforce the garage door frame as that is just studding and tongue and groove lap wood.

get some of this http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-5mm-Flat-Restraint-Strap-30x1200mm/p/215003 from Wickes – it’s predrilled and you can cut it to length. It’s good for adding support behind the bolts as you can screw all up the frame and spread the load of any attempts to break the bolt through the wood.

I have one of those garage door defender type things installed. Not the small one that has a single lock at the center of the base but one that’s about 4ft long. I think its made by Cobra Pro and is about £70. The beauty is you’d struggle to fold the door and get a big enough opening to get the bikes out which is the issue with the single Garage Defenders.

Second line of defense is the ground anchor & one of those Oxford motorbike alarms that senses movement which I have attached to the disk brake rotor.

Failing all that there’s always always the pair of 12 bores for a Tony Martin approach to burgling scum… 😉

CCTV covering the garage door should deter most thieves.

I have two of those sad products deadbolts either side at the top of the door held on with coach bolts then park the van tight against the door so you couldn’t open it even if you angle grinder’d the deadbolts.. I’ve heard of the scum turning up equipped with pillows and sledgehammers to take bricks out the side wall if you have an outside wall that is.

IP Camera, alarm and good locks.

What else can you do?

If they want it enough they’ll (unfortunately) take it.

I have just fitted the garage door bolts as above. Let’s me sleep better at night. They are a simple, cheap and reasonably effective solution.

I’ve just had a door fitted roller type and it was 650 fitted there even had a 0 % option!
Was a bargain!!!

Car is currently backed up right to the door and will remain there till i have beefed up the locks. I am fitting a floodlight as well as it is a little dark by the door and i am going to add some sort of alarm to my bikes.

Baby Monitor in the garage, and your bedroom.

CCTV covering the garage door should deter most thieves.

Why? Unless anyone is sitting up watching it then what use is it really except to watch some blokes in hoods rip you off? CCTV is useless for facial recognition, at least anything we mere mortals could afford. Provided of course that they don’t simply cover it or smash it off the wall.

Don’t waste the time and effort, discreet security doesn’t advertise expensive prizes and if it’s designed to make entry as noisy as possible then all the better.

Oh, and if they’re committed I doubt the car will put them off, easy enough to smash a window and drop the handbrake.

I heard thieves actively look for garages and sheds with CCTV, means there’s something worth stealing inside.

Squirrelking – car has electric handbrake so they have no chance of undoing it unless they hot wire the car. I agree with the cctv thing, i had my bike stolen from work we had had several cameras which caught them in the act. The problem was they were poor quality and robbers all had there heads down and caps on so utterly useless. Best thing to do as far as i am concerned is to make sure entry can only be done using loud tools, it doesnt stop them but it makes them think twice and will wake me up hopefully. Operation alcatraz begins this afternoon!

If they come back chase them off, drunk with a kitchen knife and claw hammer wearing nothing but a pair of not particularly flattering old boxer shorts, while your mrs bangs on the window upstairs, shouting and topless.

Worked for me.

OP I think the more obvious you make the security the more people think there’s something worth robbing from it.I think the best you can do is to make it noisy for them & some kind of ‘stealth’ low profile security
Jonnytheleyther,I had a similar scenario back in the late 80’s.Thieving tw*ts tried to rob my Kawasaki Z650 I ended up running down the street 4.30 in the morning, just wearing jeans & a pair of steelies with a ball pane hammer in my hand.They never came back…

*applauds jonnythelether (and his wife)*

Side lockers and a garage defender.
I know that some thieves just shovel alarm boxes off the wall with success so I was thinking of getting an alarm with PIR but putting the sounder inside. That way they can’t get to it to defeat it and even if they do get in, the noise would be too much for them to bare. Perhaps a burst eardrum would dissuade them from coming back.

Wrecker – that is exactly my plan. They may still be able to get in but its going to require lots of noise to do so and then even more noise if they get in. All my locks will be discreet so no advertising of what might be in there. To be fair my bikes are not worth very much at all but they dont really care about that but still might as well make them work for it.

I’ve got those locks that wwaswas mentioned earlier. They make it a damned sight more difficult to get into, but quite discrete, so don’t scream ‘valuable stuff in here’ to light fingered scum

Don’t keep bikes in our garage, but it is full of tools.

I’m going to be fixing my up’n’over door closed permanently soon, I can’t get a car anywhere near it now, and only ever use the side door.

Side door will be replaced with a steel door off ebay (I have one on my bike shed and it is excellent)

I reckon one of these would help, although my cat may think otherwise!

make it a damned sight more difficult to get into, but quite discrete

yes, and if you have access to the garage from another door you don’t even need to drill the garage door to allow access for the keys so just a couple of bolt heads to show it’s there.

Someone broke into our garage in January ay 20:30 on a Saturday. Bold as brass reversed into our drive, broke open the up and over door and stole two road bikes and two mountain bikes. We now have a roller door and ground anchors and all the bikes are chained with massive gold standard chains. We now also have a monitor from the house alarm in the garage.

How about one of these Trip Mine Linky at the bottom of your drive…would scare the living day lights out of any thieving buggers and/or cats…