Garage Door Lock

Like many, we try to secure our property as best we can. Doors and windows are vulnerable entry ways and there are many many products on the market to help make you feel more secure.

I read recently how easy it is to gain entry to a garage that has automatic garage door openers. Thieves can get a simple coat hangar, straighten it out with a hooked end, insert it at the top of the garage door between the weather stripping and then hook it onto the manual over-ride pull down rope. They will "fish" around until successful. If your garage doors have windows that makes it even easier for them to locate the rope.

One suggestion was to remove the rope (good idea). Just reinsert it when needed. But what if you also have an access door on the back or side of your garage? Maybe you have some side windows? They break in and easily open the garage doors.

To help secure this potential problem, I installed locks in the channels of my garage doors. The doors will not open unless they locate the keys or cut the locks. And cutting the lock seemed easy if they have bolt cutters or worse yet FIND MY CUTTERS. I felt I needed a better way.

They sell garage door locks especially made for inserting into the door channels. This lock attaches to the garage frame or door frame. It then has a slide piece that goes through the channel and locks. For added protection, you can even add a padlock to the end of the slide for even MORE protection. Now this works well if you have no other entry points as you cannot see this from the outside. But again, if they break in through another door or window, unlocking that lock is easy.

I decided to install Disc Padlocks. The kind that has very little of the slide that can be gotten to with cutters.

These locks are made of stainless steel and are available everywhere. In my opinion, they are one of the best ways to help deter getting your locks cut off. Of course if the thieves have or find your grinder/cutter, you're in trouble. But for the rest of the time, you should be secure.

I was going to purchase the garage door slide lock mentioned above (step 2) and then add this disc lock to it. But to me, if they gain entry through a window, they can easily just pry off the frame lock and possibly just hack away at the body thereby being able to remove the slide...possibly.

What I decided on (and to save money) was to just drill a hole through the garage frame rail and install the disc lock.

This needs to be installed just above the rail wheel by drilling a 3/8" hole. No matter what lock is used you need to be mindful of one thing. If you or a family member forget that the lock is in place and the remote is used, it is possible that you could potentially damage the motor. But I have found that most of the garage door openers see it as an obstruction and just stop or close. That's why it is important to install ANY lock just above the rail wheel. If you install it too high, the door can raise enough for them to scoot under if your door does not auto close.

So, if you want to save money on buying these garage door slide locks, just get one or two disc locks and install. Is this a fool-proof method...not really. If a thief really wants to get in, they will. But this makes it a bit more difficult.