how secure are Garage Doors?

[21blackswan]

is there anyway to access the garage door, from the front driveway, without having the garage door opener?

marc

[Danny D.]

There are videos out there for how to release the safety pull tab by sticking something thin inside at the top.

It's easier if the garage door has glass windows at the top.

Why do you ask? Are you planning a few burglaries? If so, I get 10% ...

[Danny D.]

Try this:

[21blackswan]

thanks,

I was wondering about my [own] garage/house security

I also wondered how important it was to lock the door in the garage, going into the house, which I do at night only [don't tell anyone]

no glass windows on my garage door

marc

[Ralph Mowery]

With all the other glass windos in my house, I do not worry about the garage door security. It does have an opener and that is all I close when I go off. My wife will lock the door to the house from the garage at night, but I don't think about it. Outside the garage is a keypad that will open that door and I do have a key hidden in the garage that will open the house door. That is so the kids ( they are grown and do not live here) can get in if we are not here, and when we moved in a bout 10 years ago my wife locked herself out about 2 or 3 times..

[21blackswan]

good point, there are many windows more vulnerable, than the garage

marc

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, I wonder if it is possible to reverse install the latch assembly B4 opener goes up in place. Then they can't unlatch it that easily like in the Video.

[Unquestionably Confused]

With an attached garage, you pretty much have to view the interior door (locked or unlocked) as secondary security. Once the garage has been entered, how hard is it for a burglar to close the garage door and beat the living daylights out of that interior access door?

Hardening your garage door (equipped with an opener) is very easy to do. The lightest weight nylon wire tie you can find will make it all but impossible for a thief to enter the garage using that vulnerability shown on the videos offered in this thread while at the same time allowing you to snap the tie easily by using the pull cord release in the manner intended by the manufacturer.

We reside in the country and have neighbors (we all watch out for each other) but our detached garage & shop is always locked, tied in to the home's burglar/fire alarm. Regardless, I used the nylon tie and when we go on an extended trip away from home, I always "lock out" the garage door remote control. The keypad function is NOT disabled and the steel access door with a "hardened" frame and latch area is secured ALWAYS by a deadbolt with digital keypad.

The best you can hope for is to make it difficult. You cannot make it impossible

[Unquestionably Confused]

Why bother? Just get the lightest weight nylon wire tie you can find and loop it through the latch. Latch will work perfectly as intended with just a slightly harder pull on the hand cord but there's no way they will get it sprung using a coat hanger, etc. unless you have a window in the door panel in which case they are probably going to be able to foil just about ANY countermeasure short of welding the release and making it totally inoperable.

When I first saw one of those videos I was surprised that it was that easy. When I got home I reached into my supply of nylon ties and cured the problem in 1 minute.

[Ralph Mowery]

Unless you are going to put iron bars over all the windows it is almost point less to put very much money , time or effort in locking up a house. Just a simple door lock will keep out the people that are just waling by. For instance my house has a deck on the back. Just go to the deck, pick up a chair or anything laying around , break out he window and climb in. Lots quicker and simpler than fooling with the garage door pull string. Also the back door has glass in it, just break it out and unlock that door.

I do not want the house broken into, but if it is, I will just let the insurance company do most of the worring. For what the alarm companies want, I can buy a lot of insurance. Also will get new stuff to replace the old stuff. I do have lots of pic of the stuff in the house that I would want replaced if stolen.

If I am in the house, the S&W will be the first line of defense.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi. Our interior door is steel with dead lock bolt(per fire code) and alarmed. We have a big dog in the back yard. I tried to gimmick the opener latch like that in the video but our garage door would not yield enough gap to shove in the coat hanger wire hook. I agree, make it difficult. Best we can do.

[Unquestionably Confused]

Good point. Our door is high and a short radius which make it difficult to gain enough room to get a stiff wire in there but not impossible. Thinking about it, you can pretty much prevent it altogether if you adjust the closing force "correctly" i.e. have that arm holding - with great force - the top panel of the door hard against the door header.

Unless you really have it tightened down as above, you can slip/pound a wedge in between the top panel and header and get a bit of work room for the wire.

[gregz]

On my separate garage, I don't think there is any space on top. No flexible moulding. But, my regular door is unlocked, so anyone can go right in.

Greg

[Unquestionably Confused]

LOL! Guess this thread is not for you then.

Kinda like the guy running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to figure out how to get back into his car as he's locked himself out.

He's really panic stricken and it's way out of proportion to a simple thing like locking his keys in the car.

Finally somebody calls him on it: "Settle down, it's no big deal. Worst case we'll call a locksmith and while it may take some time for him to get here and cost you some money, he'll get you in with no damage to the car!"

But you don't understand! It's about to rain and the top is down on my convertible!

[DerbyDad03]

The success of this method may depend on how the door is installed.

I just tried this at my house and there does not appear to be a way to get the correct angle on the hanger to reach the release. When my garage door is closed, the top overlaps the bottom of the header by almost 2 inches. When you push the hanger past the weather stripping it is forced straight up towards the ceiling.

I even went inside and manually hooked the hanger onto the release, bending the hanger into the correct shape. I went back outside and pulled the release to open the door. That worked fine. But then, leaving the hanger bent at the correct angle, I wasn't able to get it to reach the release when I tried it fresh from the outside. It kept just going straight up.

I even tried going in sort of sideways and spinning to hanger towards the release but I still couldn't get the angle right. For that method to even have worked, the hanger would already have to have been bent exactly right. Perhaps via trial and error a burglar could make it work, but it wouldn't be done in 6 seconds like the video showed.

[clare]

They would have to find mine first. It's not in the center of the door

[clare]

A small battery operated drill solves the problem of the direction of the hanger.

[DerbyDad03]

As would a hammer applied to one of the windows. I was merely pointing out the very simple, very quick, very quiet method showed in the video might not work with certain door installations.

[tom]

[Robin27]

I think If you have installed a proper alarm system than you don't need to care more about the security of your garage.Because the other person knows that if they try to open the door the alarm will be triggered and they got in any trouble.