Shed Door Security – Tips To Burglar-Proof Your Shed

If you keep valuable possessions in your shed then making some small investments in shed door security is a no-brainer. But what are the best options to take in order to secure your shed?

According to Admiral Insurance, shed, garage and outbuilding break-ins increase by 82% in the winter, with the average cost being £2000. This is likely because it gets dark much earlier here in the UK around this time, meaning it’s possible for a burglar to steal from your shed even while you are home.

There is also a good chance your own home insurance may not cover theft from sheds and outbuildings, meaning you might be on your own if you experience a shed theft.

Naturally, almost all robberies in sheds involve the burglar entering through the shed door. This is why making a focus on improving your shed door security is absolutely essential.

What Options Are There For Shed Door Security?

Luckily, the UK is blessed with a load of local and international home security companies, who specialise in making a burglar’s life as hard as possible. The main options come in the form of strong padlocks, door security bars and heavy duty door hinges. You can arguably secure a shed well for as little as around £25-50, with a high level of shed door security costing around the £200-300 mark.

Based on research from Compare The Market, around 16% of shed owners in the UK have had their sheds broken into. I knew shed burglaries were common, but not that bad!

Lets take a look at the best options for shed door security:

1) Heavy Duty Padlock Bolts Make Sure Your Lock Works

There’s very little benefit of locking a shed with a weak padlock bolt on the door. If the bolt can easily be broken or removed from the shed door then no matter how good your lock is, the door can still be easily opened by someone with basic tools.

This is where a heavy duty padlock bolt is useful. Fitting one of these makes it much harder for a burglar to try to remove the bolt itself. This moves us on to the next shed door security measure which is absolutely essential.

2) Upgrade your Shed’s Door Hinges

The door hinges that typically come with a standard garden shed are mass produced, flimsy and certainly not what I would call secure. What you’re wanting is to make sure that the ability to kick the door in is very difficult. A set of shed door hinges like these will help with securing a shed door against this.

A good heavy duty door hinge for a shed should be long, well built, and have lots of holes to secure the door to the wall. Pairing good hinges with strong bolts ensures a much more secure fitment of the shed door, making a break in by brute force much more difficult.

Make sure that when you attach the hinges they can’t be unscrewed from the outside.

3) A Heavy Duty Padlock Is Essential

These days, I think a lot of the public assumes that burglars are skilled locksmiths thanks to the dozens of viral YouTube clips such as this showing how simple it can be to pick a lock.

This might be the case for someone with the technical knowledge to be able to do such a thing, but you will typically see bolt cutters used a lot of the time. Based on this, I think the thickness of a lock might be even more important than the complexity of it, because many criminals of this kind will take the easier option and simply try to cut through the lock.

Investing in a lock should not only act as a good visual deterrent, but also be really difficult to get through without the assistance of loud, heavy power tools.

One of the absolute best options on the market is the Abus 37RK/80mm Granit. It is featured as one of the most difficult to pick locks on LockPickingLawyer, which means it really is pretty much impossible to pick.

Combining this with the 8 Tonne, yes 8 TONNE pull resistance and massive shackle size, and you find yourself with one of the beefiest locks money can buy.

These aren’t cheap, but if you have nice tools, bikes or gym equipment in your shed then it’s definitely a worthwhile investment. Just based on looks alone, a vast majority of thieves would simply move on to a less secure shed.

4) Shed Door Security Locking Bar – Very Effective

These locking bars make life really frustrating for shed burglars. These security bars are designed to prevent the door from being opened, and since they are made from thick, solid steel they are very difficult to break through. Even in the unlikely chance a burglar tried to cut a whole in the door itself, it would be near impossible to take anything big out of the shed. These are perfect if you have bikes and other big, valuable assets stored inside your shed.

As I mentioned with the heavy duty door hinges, remember to make it so that it isn’t possible to remove the bar from the outside by securing the bar using smooth bolts. This means the only way to remove the bolts using manual tools is from the inside.

Bonus Tips For Securing Your Shed

Try To Make Your Shed Look Unappealing

The goal should be to make sure it isn’t obvious to thieves that you have valuable things worth stealing if they walk past your house. Whether that’s by boarding up your shed window, making sure all of your garden tools and power tools are hidden away, or making sure your fence isn’t easy to look through.

The best possible option, although this isn’t possible for many, is to make it so that no one would even know you have a shed in the first place. Obviously if you have outbuildings and larger structures like that it’s going to be a lot more difficult than if you have a wooden shed. Another option if you’re living in a dense area like a town or city is to grow tall hegdes. These act as a great form of privacy from walkers and also your neighbours.

Install Security Lights

This could have been one of the recommended products, but I decided that security lights deserve their own special mention. Security lights are a great deterrent to stop people from snooping around your property at night, as it will be immediately obvious to you if there is a trespasser in your garden.

If you can, opt for security lights connected to mains power because although solar powered motion activated security lights are available, they tend to be less reliable from my personal experience.

Security lights are great for many reasons, including that they illuminate your garden for you when you’re walking through at night. I couldn’t imagine having to try and navigate through my garden at night without them any more, I’m far too clumsy.

Make Sure You Have Insurance To Cover The Shed

This is a measure many may overlook, but getting insurance which covers your valuables stored in your shed is essential. The last thing you want is for your £3000 bike to be stolen, only to find out your home insurance doesn’t cover it. Double check with your current home insurance provider to make sure they cover theft from your shed, and if they don’t, consider investing in coverage with does provide the ability to claim against theft from your shed.

Conclusion – Shed Door Security Is Easy, And Doesn’t Need to Cost A Lot

At the end of the day, the budget you are willing to invest in securing your shed is going to be relative to the value of the items you store in it. If you, like many of my middle-aged pals, have carbon fibre race bikes and all sorts of expensive kit, then it’s definitely worth paying a premium to make sure your pride and joy isn’t stolen. On the other hand, if you just use your shed as a log store, maybe just buying a beefier lock and decent padlock bolt will be enough.

Thank’s for reading, if you are on a roll and looking to improve your car’s security, read my article on that here.