Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)
  • Roller garage door – how secure?
  • dirkpitt74
    Full Member

    Thinking of changing the current up & over garage door to a roller to create a bit more space inside.

    What’s the security like on a roller, and what can be added to improve security.

    geordiemick00
    Free Member

    after having my bike nicked from the garage, we did this and after a year or so here’s my observations..

    Getting into an up and over is easy, because most of them have a petty cash box-esque cylinder which can be bust fairly quickly and with little noise.

    The roller door frees up a bit more useful space, like places to hang spades, brushes etc in that void a up and over takes.

    Our door feels really strong, i’m sure it won’t take a car reversing into it, but getting in through it would make some serious noise too, plus there’s no lock to breach as it’s also an electric door.

    We’re pleased with ours, best £800 we’ve spent for a while.

    Tracey
    Full Member

    Our old roller door took 6.7 seconds from busting it off the motor, getting two bikes and getting back out with the alarm going off all the time. All caught on cctv.
    We ended up paying the extra over and above the insurance payout and fitting a SeceuroGlide Excel on the recomendation of the crime prevention officer. Hopefully that and other beefing up should keep the bikes as safe as possible

    https://www.sws.co.uk/homeowners/roller-garage-doors/seceuro-glide-excel/

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    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Bottle jack makes short work of a roller door lock.

    ads678
    Full Member

    I secured my up and over garage door by not using it and putting racking in front of it with!! Obviously this doesn’t help if you don’t have another door and actually want to put a car in the garage!!

    sharkattack
    Full Member

    I’ve got an electric roller door but when the time came it might as well have been a curtain with a sign saying ‘come on in, free bikes inside’. Absolute waste of space.

    It’s currently fixed closed with a million screws until I can afford a better option.

    We almost always block it with the big car but on the one night didn’t we got stung.

    40mpg
    Full Member

    Considering same, bookmarking for interest. Plus any more recommendations please!

    argee
    Full Member

    ads678
    Full Member
    I secured my up and over garage door by not using it and putting racking in front of it with!! Obviously this doesn’t help if you don’t have another door and actually want to put a car in the garage!!

    Not many garage doors are secure, up and over can be bent over like a lid on a tin can, usually held in with a crap wire pulley system, or cheap aluminium bars, rollers suffer just as much as they have no strength if you overpower them from the bottom, i did the same as ads678, just secured the up and over to make it a hell of a job for someone to get in and actually get anything out!

    jonba
    Free Member

    The locking mechanism can be weak. It would probably be trivial to force it. Better than an up and over.

    Mine goes straight onto a back alley so always a concern. But there’s not a huge amount of point fitting a super secure door as they’d likely just peel the flat roof off.

    If someone comes with the intention of steeling bikes they probably will manage. I try to make the prospect unappealing, harder than other houses and full of risk.

    My ideal solution would be to brick up the doorway and just have a normal door. Only bikes and DIY stuff in the garage so that would be fine. Or look at a mad door – seemed to work for castles.

    karlp
    Full Member

    I have a roller door (manual). The lock would be easy to lever (it turns and pushes two bars out into the side rails).
    However, I use a long piece of wood on the inside that I jam into the top roller mechanism. This prevents the door from being rolled up. Not totally secure but is another obstacle to slow them down.
    Not the most neighbour friendly garage doors ie noisy to open & close. Good for ventilation in the garage (air flows over the top of the roller).

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Manual roller with pacri’s

    Like you I wanted the internal space and extra height (kept bumping my head on the up and over )

    Electric rollers unless your spending the massive bucks are as shark attack says little better than curtains

    They will still get in. But it’ll be noisy

    mudfish
    Full Member

    Hey Tracey.
    What was the price of the secure door you fitted please?
    Single garage size?
    Thx
    Can’t get price without on-site visit it seems.

    Rio
    Full Member

    We have a supposedly secure-by-design roller door. You’d have a job opening it, but 5 min with a cordless angle grinder would get you in. It’s still better than most up-and-overs where 5 minute without an angle grinder would get you in.

    Some of the roller doors we looked at to replace it when it looked as though the motor was packing up were truly pathetic with nothing to stop someone from lifting the door from the bottom, Hormann being the worst. When asked they said it wasn’t meant to stop people getting into the garage; I guess it’s designed to keep the rain out.

    Can’t get price without on-site visit it seems

    Garage doors are the new double glazing – “I can only offer you this special price if you sign up now” etc etc.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    We have a supposedly secure-by-design roller door. You’d have a job opening it, but 5 min with a cordless angle grinder would get you in. It’s still better than most up-and-overs where 5 minute without an angle grinder would get you in.

    To be fair to the garage door. 2 seconds with a brick opens your house. your not trying to make it impenetrable just less attractive than others.

    snotrag
    Full Member

    “How secure is a door” is a bit like “How good is a bike” as I’m sure we are all aware.

    There are loads of companies adverising roller garage doors, supplied and fitted for £999 etc… You’ll get what you pay for.

    I’d start with looking through this list here – I’m sure theres other options not listed but this would be a good start:

    https://www.securedbydesign.com/component/sbd/?view=category&category=Garage+Doors+%26+Vehicular+Roller+Shutter+Doors

    On a side note if anyone is looking for a side/pedestrian door, highly reccomend these guys. Installed one on my new build garage and it is miles, miles better in every way than anything the devleopers have supplied for other customers.

    https://www.lathamssteeldoors.co.uk/

    (I chose a 900mm wide side door specifically so I can fit a mdoern MTB through easily!)

    thenorthwind
    Full Member

    My garage currently has an electric roller door which was there when we bought it. I think it’s probably more secure than an up-and-over, but it’s marginal. I can’t wait to replace it though. Having to wait for the bloody thing to winch itself open and shut every time you want to get a bike out is really annoying. It might sound stupid since it’s only 20-30 seconds, but it really bugs me. Particularly when you forget your lights/lock/whatever and have to go back in. Plus the big gap at the top, since I use the garage as a workspace.

    I really want to replace it with barn doors with multipoint locks, but they’re expensive, and if I do it, I might as well get something that looks nice from the outside, is insulated, has beefier security, and glazed panels for light (which somewhat offsets the security, but worth it I think).

    Tracey
    Full Member

    @mudfish We used a local garage door fitter to supply and fit the door. Its a few years ago now, 2016 I think, Its a single door but oversized in width and height to get the van in. cost us £1450 fitted which we though was worth the extra over what the insurance company was going to have fitted.

    v7fmp
    Full Member

    a perfectly timed thread, as i am also looking to fit a roller door, like many to increase usable space.

    Is the general consensus that a mechanically opened roller door is marginally harder to penetrate than an electrically controlled one?

    Are there options of dead locks or similar available for rollers? Or would they serve little purpose in the grand scheme of things?

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    Just ordered a Hormann sectional door myself, there’s not a whole lot of info regarding their security though (other than a cheesy YouTube clip showing the Milk Tray man giving up after trying a crow bar for 3 seconds). Bit worried now myself after reading this thread, mind you it’s a 10-12 week lead time (making steel stuff has long delays at the moment apparently) so won’t be here any time soon.

    Reason for replacement is I locked myself out the other day (without my phone on me or neighbours having a spare key so had to go to the police station and after waiting an hour at an unmanned reception an officer took pity on me and wrote down some local locksmith numbers for me). I had to then find a pay phone and dialled the first number (without being able to research reviews of the company)…

    When he arrived and the first tool he pulled out was a drill I opted to go in via the garage door rather than my front door (which I new had a lot of drill protection on the lock). He first drilled out the lock on the T-handle (it was an up & over door) and that didn’t help (the latch is sprung so defaults to locked when the cable tension is removed). He eventually managed to crow bar it off one of it’s side rollers (bending the door at the same time), so £175 out of pocket + needed a new garage door.

    Thankfully I’d previously had floor bolt things fitted (after recommendations here several years ago) to the door but had been too lazy to use them but once the door was bent back and the rollers sorted it now closes and I can lock the bottom bolts to secure it. Probably could have looked at just getting it repaired but I wanted to try an insulated door anyway (as it’s a coach house building so my living room is above my garage).

    dirkpitt74
    Full Member

    @trail_rat I hadn’t thought of pacri/Enfield bolts as wasn’t sure you could fit them to a roller – have them on my up & over.

    Appreciate it won’t be the most secure – but my up & over isn’t. I can’t put extra security on the inside of the door as it’s the only access to the garage.

    mrlebowski
    Free Member

    2 things:

    1. They easily opened the garage door.
    2. It was targeted – watch those Strava privacy setting.

    https://road.cc/content/news/moped-gang-steal-junior-national-tt-champs-bike-287033

    dcwhite1984
    Free Member

    Replaced an up and over garage door with an electric roller door earlier this year.

    No lock on the outside to overpower, but i dont think it would take too much to actually get through, anything large and pointy will go straight through the door and voila “heres Johnny”

    However it is more secure than the up and over it replaced, and also frees up loads of space inside.

    For extra security for the bikes i have a wall mounted ground anchor and an almax chain and lock. If im going away for a few days i also have a cable extension and d lock which winds round the wheels/workbench etc to make things awkward.

    If someone really wants to get in they will, but i much prefer my roller to the old up and over.

    fettlin
    Full Member

    I’ve always felt that the inherent weakness of a garage door, whatever the style, come from the ability to open/lock it from the outside. Anything that gives that level of convenience is going to have a weakness somewhere to force your way in.

    Do you have other access? I’d be looking at only using the main door from inside and locking/securing it from inside as well. dead bolts to the frame/into the floor. bolt through the roller mechanism etc.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    @dirkpitt74

    Depends on the profile of the door.

    The door I got they rebate fully into the box profile.

    If they dont fit the profile you can’t have them as the door won’t roll up

    dcwhite1984
    Free Member

    Do you have other access? I’d be looking at only using the main door from inside and locking/securing it from inside as well. dead bolts to the frame/into the floor. bolt through the roller mechanism etc.

    Not sure if this was aimed at me, but no i only have access to my garage through the roller door so deadbolt from inside wouldnt work for me, i do have a manual override for it to which i have a chuffing long tool that sits into a slot and you manually wind the door open, this can only be overridden if there is no power. The slot is covered by a lockable plate in a really awkward position.

    mudfish
    Full Member

    Tracey
    Thanks for that
    I hope it stays secure for you

    N

    Tracey
    Full Member

    Ours is the same, only one access, we had a power cut for over 12 hours and the garage alarm kept going off. We had to use the manual over ride which took 20 mins to get the door high enough to crawl under to turn of the alarm at the box and another 20 mins to wind the door back down.

    When we bought the door we were shown a demonstration on one fitted in the showroom of one trying to be jacked up with a car jack. He dropped the door down onto the jack and although the sensor stopped the door dropping fully the guy couldn’t jack it back up. Although there was a lot of marks on the bottom of the door from previous demonstrations.

    There is limit to what can be done to stop these thief’s breaking in including further measures if they get through the door.

    sharkattack
    Full Member

    On a side note if anyone is looking for a side/pedestrian door, highly reccomend these guys. Installed one on my new build garage and it is miles, miles better in every way than anything the devleopers have supplied for other customers.

    https://www.lathamssteeldoors.co.uk/

    Thanks for that, they look like pretty beasty doors. My back door is the weakest link at the minute so this would solve that problem.

    Sui
    Free Member

    @mudfish i’ve got the same one as Tracey, it’s an odd size (apparantly) @ 4.2m wide which put it into the next price bracket, it’s also quite high at 2.5m, in total it was £2.7k inc VAT. Bought it from “The Garage door Centre”. OUrs sits behind the inner wall, which we were told was more secure as there is no exposed parts to get at. It’s also the insulated door as the garage is part of the house.

    damascus
    Free Member

    Do you park you car in the garage? If you don’t, why do you need a full width garage door?

    Look at building regs and consider bricking it up and just putting a door in. Garage doors are not very secure or efficient when it comes to heat loss.

    Alternatively, how about a door with a door?

    https://images.app.goo.gl/CWvWmrttcg8GtTXn6

    dirkpitt74
    Full Member

    I don’t currently park a car in the garage – but that may change in the future.
    At the moment it’s more about freeing up space.

    Door within a door isn’t a bad shout – might look at pricing one of those up too.

    dirkpitt74
    Full Member

    Looking at steel 1/3 2/3 opening doors now – seems a better option than the roller shutter and I can add a bit more security to it.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Are there options of dead locks or similar available for rollers? Or would they serve little purpose in the grand scheme of things?

    Our old gym had RSDs but they had fitted ground anchor bolts as well, so the RSD was bolted to the concrete floor when closed. The bolts were enormous so I doubt a bottle jack would have had any effect.

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