Stay Safe with Garage Door Security Tips

If you’re like most people, you keep your home’s exterior doors locked most (if not all) of the time. But do you give the same attention to your garage door? With some simple changes to your home, and your routines, your garage will be as secure an entrance as your home’s exterior doors.

Protect your remote

Leaving your remote garage door opener in the car is like handing the front keys of your home over to anyone who should get access to your car. Remove your remote from the car when you’re not using it, or even consider a keychain remote that will always go with you when you get out of the car.

Be smart about smart keys

Similar to your remote, don’t get into the habit of leaving your smart key in the car just because you don’t need it in your hand to get back in. Leaving a smart key in the car is literally leaving the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition.

Secure your interior garage door

How many of us pull into the garage, lower the door, and then enter the house but leave the interior garage door unlocked? If anyone should breach your garage door, or if it were to malfunction and not close (or reopen if the sensors are tripped), then your home is wide open and vulnerable. Install the same quality of door and locking system as you would if it were your front door. It should also be fire resistant, and installing a peephole is good idea (if someone is knocking on your interior garage door, you definitely want to see who’s on the other side!).

Frost or cover garage door windows

Whether you have windows in the garage walls or the door itself, or both, it’s not a space you want prying eyes looking into. Cover the windows or frost them to keep light passing through but unwanted onlookers out.

Lock the door

Just like all your other doors, closing them is not as secure as locking them. Your automatic garage door opener may have a lock feature on the keypad that prevents raising the door until disengaged. It’s great to use this feature when everyone is home and no one with a remote would need to open the door from outside (the lock prevents remote controls from working, so anyone wanting to enter the home with the lock engaged will have to use another entrance).

When you’re traveling, or whenever you need more security than an electronic lock, add a padlock to your garage door track through one of its holes. This low-tech locking method is highly effective, as it doesn’t rely on power and can’t be overridden.

Install motion lights

Don’t let would-be thieves catch you by surprise. Keep them from even getting to your garage door unnoticed by adding motion-sensing security lights by your garage. If electrical wiring isn’t your thing, solar motion lights can be an easy-to-deploy solution to light up your walkway and the front of your garage and home.

It can be easy to overlook the security vulnerabilities of a hefty garage door, but with a few precautions, you gain security and peace of mind knowing that all the entries to your home have been made as safe as possible.