Top Garage Door Security Guide For Homeowners & Sitters

Most homeowners will take precautions before they go on holiday. Check our garage door security guide to ensure you have covered all bases making sure both you and your housesitter are ready for any event while you are away. Read on to learn more.

Garage Door Security Guide for Homeowners and Housesitters

Many people take steps to secure their home before they go on vacation: they lock the front door, switch lights on and off with a timer, and have the mail held. The garage door, the largest entry point to a home, typically receives much less attention. That matters most when the interior door from the garage to the rest of the home is rarely locked.

garage door security guide says keep you garage door lockable and assets safe — This garage door security guide helps you keep your assets safe
Photo credit – João Emanuel

Whether the house sits empty for the period or you have a house-sitter, spending a little time in the garage prior to departure will seal one of the simplest entry points.

Why the Garage Is a Target

One particular thing to note in our garage door security guide is that much value in the home is actually stored in garages. Bicycles, tools, sports equipment and even second cars are typical for garages. Many garages are connected directly to the kitchen or the hallway. So once someone is in the garage, the interior door is often the only barrier left, and it is usually lighter than the front door.

And ironically most garage entries are not sophisticated. An open door, a parked car outside with a garage door opener remote in it, or an antiquated garage door opener are typically enough to allow an entry.

Before You Leave

Our short checklist in this garage door security guide covers most of the risk.

Lock the interior door between the garage and the house, and treat it like a front door.
Bring the remotes inside. A remote clipped to a car parked in the driveway is an open invitation. Take it out of any car that stays outside.
Use the vacation lock. Many wall consoles have a lock button that disables remotes. Check the opener’s manual. If the house-sitter will be using the garage, leave this off and explain how it works.
Cover garage windows. Frosted film or a simple curtain stops anyone from seeing whether a car is inside.
Check the manual release. On some doors, the emergency release can be reached from outside through the top gap with a hook. A release shield or a zip tie on the release lever, removable by hand from inside, makes this much harder.
Test the door. Open and close it a few times. A door that struggles or makes new noises should be looked at before you go, not while you are away.

What a House-Sitter Should Know

security lights above a double garage will help security — Improve the quality of the lights around your garage door to ensure security and intruder detection
Photo credit – Erik Mclean

A good handover of information to a house sitter should contain the same amount of information about the garage as it does about the thermostat and the pets. Write a short note to the house sitter with the following information.

How to open and close the door, and where the remotes and keypad code are.
Whether the interior door should stay locked.
Where the opener’s wall button is, and whether the vacation lock is in use.
Who to contact if the door stops working.

Sitters should also know two safety rules that apply to every garage door. Never pull the red release cord while the door is open or jammed. The red release cord must only be pulled while the garage door is completely closed. If the garage door becomes very heavy suddenly or if a loud bang is heard from the garage, a spring may have broken. If a spring breaks, the opener must not be run any more with the broken spring. The door must be left in the position it is in and a technician must be called.

If Something Goes Wrong While You’re Gone

No matter what time of year or night, garage doors can fail. A spring may break on a cold winter night, a cable can develop faint cracks in it, or an opener simply stop working after a temporary power surge. The sitter’s job is not to fix it.

Spring and cable work belongs to a trained technician, never a homeowner. The same goes for the drive gear and wiring inside the opener. A door that comes off track can weigh 200 pounds or more, and it can drop without warning. Keep people and vehicles clear until a technician secures it.

Before you leave for your trip, make a plan and agree with your house sitter if he/she should schedule a repair and who your local repair people are. For example, if you are a homeowner in the Pacific Northwest, you might note a provider of garage door repair in Seattle, and firms such as Century Garage Door Repair Service serve many metro areas around the country. With the decision made in advance, a broken door does not turn into a stressful phone call across time zones.

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Small Upgrades Worth Considering

Very old door openers, mostly those made before the late 1990s, use a fixed-code remote control. Modern door openers use so called rolling codes which change every time the remote control is used. This makes it very hard to reproduce the code. Some smart door openers even show on your phone if the door is open and you can open the door for a sitter remotely.

Adding motion-sensor driveway lights and a garage door camera is another layer of protection. These are both easy to set up before you leave on a trip.

Quick Answers

Should I lock my garage door when I go on vacation?

Use the opener’s vacation lock if so equipped. Bring all remotes into the home. Lock the door between the garage and house.

What should a house-sitter do if the garage door breaks?

Leave it alone and keep people clear of it. Contact the homeowner or the company mentioned in the handover notes.

Can someone open a garage door from outside with a coat hanger?

The emergency release on some doors can be accessed from outside. Adding a release shield or a zip tie to the release lever will make this more difficult.