Enter/exit through attached garage

[Venus Pax]

Dog = best burglar alarm ever created.

Mine must be faulty.

[kw5kw]

Dog = best burglar alarm ever created.

Mine must be faulty.

[eagleeye]

Attic stairways in the garage make it fairly easy for BG to go up and over. Just drop in through ceiling. Might be a suprise waiting though.

MW

[nitrogen]

Many people enter and exit their homes through the garage using automatic door openers. If the garage is attached, should that person deadbolt the door between the garage and the main house?

Yes, absolutely, 100%

Even moreso if your house is like mine, and the geniuses that built it put windows in your garage.

Also realise that most garage doors are cheap and easily breeched. They are more like a storm door.

[Mr.Scott]

We only have a 1 car garage and it is just used for storage, so the roll up metal door is always locked. It does have a cheap flimsy side door (that I need to replace) so I keep the closet in the garaged locked (it houses my safe) and I keep the door into the house locked and deadbolted. If someone was able to get into the garage and managed to not break their neck getting over the crap in it, they would have to face the 2 dogs that sleep in the laundry room that goes to the garage, and if they make it that far, they have to deal with me.

[Mike from Texas]

I do have a garage and door opener but unlike some have posted it is the heaviest door in the house. I guess maybe for fire rating in case the car were to go up in flames? On my next house that I build, I will have steel doors and frames installed with reinforcing. I've seen too many doors kicked in with one single boot to the door.

[KBCraig]

Just to remind everyone: if your garage door is installed as designed, it has a rope hanging down that allows the track to be disengaged, so the door can be lifted manually in case of power outage.

Fire trucks carry a slimjim-like tool that slips between the panels and hooks the rope, allowing firefighters to pull it and disengage the opener. And just like opening car doors with a slimjim, firefighters are not the only ones who know this trick.

If you're leaving for an extended period, close the door and engage the manual locks so that it can't be opened except from the inside, then leave via another door.

[mr.72]

Speaking of general garage door security, recently I built a loft in my garage and re-mounted the door tracks and that sort of thing as a matter of course to get along with the loft. I noticed just how flimsy the garage door system is. The metal "bars" that fit into the holes in the track are flimsy and easily defeated by inserting some kind of device between the door panels and bending them from the outside. Also the twist-lock latch is not exactly the most solid thing either. I think the entire latch could be easily removed with a claw hammer or a small crow bar. Certainly a solid whack with a 3lb sledge hammer would shear it right off. This is a typical middle class suburban TX "master planned community" kind of house and probably has the typical type of garage door mechanics (same as my last house).

My house has two garage doors and only one has an electric opener. The one with the electric opener is far more secure.

I think it would be wise of any of us who expect the garage door to offer any degree of security to evaluate the effectiveness of the standard material, and consider an overhaul to this typical design. I don't know what would work better or if there really are any alternatives, but certainly my garage doors are easy prey for entry to the house.

I drive a convertible with a soft top, and it is typical for owners of this type of car to not lock the car, given the fact that any pocket knife allows easy nearly-silent entry and requiring a potential car thief to to break in simply adds to the repair cost total. Instead we just lock any valuables in the trunk and leave nothing of value inside the passenger cabin. I think a similar measure of security is wise with flimsy sheet metal garage doors. Don't store anything of high value in the garage, don't expect the garage door to offer a large margin of security, and be sure the door that allows entry to the house from the garage is secure.