Are you planning vacation time with your family?
But think that your garage door is old, and it can be vulnerable when you are away on the vacation, and you want to tighten its security.
Yes, garage doors are the most vulnerable, intruders can make their way into your garage and take away expensive and important tools.
You know that in the garage you store the most important tools, it can be indoors and outdoors tools that you use every day in your home, and out too.
So, that’s important to secure your garage door and make it less vulnerable.
The first thing you can do right away is to ask your neighbors for help. Have them keep an eye on your home and things, they can be your eyes, even thousands of miles away.
So, it would be better if you make friends with them, a friendly neighbor is always helpful.
Other than your friendly neighbors, there are several ways you can do to ensure your garage door safety before leaving for your holiday.
In this post, I am going to pen-down top methods you can ensure your garage door safety by locking your door from inside.
7 Easy Ways To Lock Garage Door From Inside
Before you go out on a trip, you must make your home as well as garage bulger-proof.
These methods are going to make you tighten the security around your home, and lock it from inside so that no one could ever break into your home as well as garage.
1. Lock the Release Lever
Do you know what is the most common methods among bulgers to break into your garage room?
The garage door opener lever is designed to open the garage from inside when there is a power cut, or if there is a mechanical problem, and you are not able to open the garage room from outside.
What bulgers do is, insert a cloth hanger from the top of the garage door, reach the lever and pull it down.
That lever is easier to pull down, just one big jerk will be enough to get the lever down, and if that happens, your garage door will be automatic, it can be opened and closed from inside as well as outside.
In most of the doors, you can say, they are protected against this fishing but believe me, it is still possible.
What the bulgers require is a little piece of cloth to reach the lever and pull it down.
The simple workaround to prevent this fishing is to install a zip tie on the release lever.
To do this, firstly you should disconnect your garage opener, to make the garage door never gets opened accidentally and opening the door.
Locate the hole at the bottom of the trolley, the release lever is attached to the trolley with a hinge.
Insert the zip time through the hole in the hinges, and the hole on the release lever.
Tight the zip tie, now it can’t be opened from the outside, you can only cut it open with a wire cutter.
So if any of your family members want to open the garage door with the opener, he/she must be aware of the trick, or it can be confusing.
2. Garage Door Slide Lock
When you are not home, the thing that can prevent bulgers from breaking into your garage room is the garage door slide lock.
Don’t take it like a regular door lock, it is different. Normal locks are installed on the doors and get opened from the outside with the key.
In the case of a garage door slide lock, it seals your home from the inside, and can’t be opened from the outside.
These are an inexpensive way to secure your door from the inside and easier to install too.
You can buy one, and get it installed by yourself, the thing you need is a drill and screws, easily get it installed.
If you are not much into power tools use, you can hire professional expertise.
For installing it by yourself the tools you require are a flathead screwdriver, hex screws, impact drills, and a latch.
Locate the vertical track on your door, you can install one on both sides too, for enhanced protection and security.
If you are interested in installing one, you can go with one, one deadbolt too is good enough.
If there are already holes on the vertical track good to go, but if are not there, use a hole punch to remove the template to allow to latch insert into.
Now place the slide on the wall and rightly align the latch in the hole on the track.
Drive the screws, you can drill more than two if want, but two would be enough to make it good stability.
3. Install A padlock
If you have a spare padlock in your home, you should rather install one other than anything such as a slide lock and others.
It is the simplest solution to tighten the security around your garage and make it unbreakable for the bulgers.
What you will require here are a Padlock and an impact drill.
Hereby installing a padlock, we are blocking the function of opening the garage door. The garage door passes through the vertical tracks to open and close.
With a padlock, you stop this function and make someone from the outside access your garage door.
Installing a padlock is straightforward. Vertical tracks of the door come with bottom holes, if there are no holes, don’t worry you can drill the hole with a drill.
But most probably there will be holes on the vertical track of the garage door.
If the holes are already made, put the padlock on the bottom of the track, don’t put it too high on the track, put it on the bottom above the garage door roller.
Now if you lock the padlock through the holes, the rollers would not move, also disabling the rest of the roller.
Check the padlock every time you open the garage door, because sometimes you forget and it can damage the garage door.
4. Frost the Windows
Windows are designed in the garage door for natural light and air.
The potential thieves or bulgers can peer in the windows to inspect if all the cars are gone, just to know if there is anyone in the home.
If they are ensuring that nobody is home, they can apply any destructive method to get into your garage or your home.
To prevent this, you can install a frosted film, a layer of the film that prevents people from having a view of the inside.
5. Lock the door between your garage and Home
In most homes, garages are attached to the home to make it handy to in and out.
The garages in that way are easier to access, and you can anytime, in your spare time fix your cars and other things.
Our homes’ doors are mostly expensive, of good quality and powerful doors, that’s why home door locks are hard to break.
But garage doors are easier to break into, once it is broken, the opened door between the garage and your home can be a reason for stealing your expensive appliances, gadgets, jewelry, and many other things.
related: Garage Door Cost
6. Unplug the Opener
You know that burglars too are advanced these days. They use special devices that capture the garage door codes and help them access your property easily.
So, for that you should be extra careful, your garage doors should have a special rolling code mechanism.
If it is an old garage door, then better would be that you unplug the opener, and make it hard for them to use the opener for breaking into the home.
7. Motion detecting floodlights
Thieves operate under the cover of darkness. So, it would be a better idea to install motion-detecting floodlights.
If they try entering the garage door, motion-detecting floodlights will burst a light to deter them.
I find solar-powered lights the easier and most efficient use. Because here you are not required electric wiring.
You can buy any motion-detecting light for your garage; online stores are overflowed with them.
Conclusion
Again, garage doors are vulnerable, especially when you are out on a trip and nobody is there to have an eye on your home.
It can be an easy entry point for burglars, and thieves to your home, in your absence.
So, it is your responsibility that you keep things protected, and safe-guarded, by following the methods and procedures we just mentioned.
Don’t throw your remote control just anywhere around. Make a special place in your home to put stuff like that, so that you could easily spot any of them when they need.
Locking the garage door from the inside is an easier and more practical method to put intruders in disarray. They would not know if there is anybody home or not.
They would not be able to override the system, but if they know that nobody is at home, they can follow even a destructive method for a forceful entry into your home and garage.
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