Secure bike-shed - sanity check please...

[Inspector]

Big dog = secure.

 

[MikeG.]

I have secured my shed with 2 bars of unistrut 41mm x 41mm withe brackets coach bolted through the concrete walls......

The weak link is the lock/ release mechanism, not the bars themselves. Making sure that isn't vulnerable to someone with bolt croppers or a battery powered angle grinder is critical. Also, the edges of the doors themselves.....if someone can insert the blade of a reciprocating saw they'll just cut out a hole below your bar. A piece of steel on the door edge solves that, but best of all of course is a steel door.

A farmer friend, after repeated break-ins, has a blank steel door on his huge workshop (big enough to re-fit a train carriage). I won't tell you the mechanism, but there are no hinges, no locks no holes, no handles.......nothing. It is released away from the door, and if you stood there for an hour you wouldn't begin to work out how. Something puzzling like this is the best security for a door, I reckon. I have a 75mm by 12mm steel strap/ bar across my workshop door which pushes in through the wall either side of the door, so has no obvious release point externally. One day I'll put a dummy key pad nearby just to divert attention for a few minutes. There is hardly an outbuilding around here which hasn't been broken into, so security is something we all take extremely seriously.

Big dog = secure.

No way. Ask the police about this. The so-and-sos are liable to steal your dog as well.

 

[Rorschach]

The more secure it looks, the more tempting it is and in an age of battery powered power tools there is very little that can't be broken into in a matter of minutes.

The best security of all is convincing the world that it doesn't exist in the first place.

 

[FatmanG]

I have secured my shed with 2 bars of unistrut 41mm x 41mm withe brackets coach bolted through the concrete walls......

The weak link is the lock/ release mechanism, not the bars themselves. Making sure that isn't vulnerable to someone with bolt croppers or a battery powered angle grinder is critical. Also, the edges of the doors themselves.....if someone can insert the blade of a reciprocating saw they'll just cut out a hole below your bar. A piece of steel on the door edge solves that, but best of all of course is a steel door.

A farmer friend, after repeated break-ins, has a blank steel door on his huge workshop (big enough to re-fit a train carriage). I won't tell you the mechanism, but there are no hinges, no locks no holes, no handles.......nothing. It is released away from the door, and if you stood there for an hour you wouldn't begin to work out how. Something puzzling like this is the best security for a door, I reckon. I have a 75mm by 12mm steel strap/ bar across my workshop door which pushes in through the wall either side of the door, so has no obvious release point externally. One day I'll put a dummy key pad nearby just to divert attention for a few minutes. There is hardly an outbuilding around here which hasn't been broken into, so security is something we all take extremely seriously.

Oh now I won't sleep tonight aren't there any locks that can withstand an angle grinder? My place is in my garden so I should hear a power tool at night. I'm going to get one of those motion sensor cameras that you can watch/control via your phone. I will now have to buy a bleeding phone as well

 

[Pedropete]

You could think about some secondary security. I know a couple of people near me who have bike sheds with a short steel post/hoop coming up through the floor, one is cemented into a hole in the ground the other has a big flat plate bolted under the floor so just the post sticks through - easy to fit when you are building it. Bikes get locked to it, the chain or cable never goes out with the bikes so it can be as heavy as you like. Doesn't stop break ins, but thieves likely to go elsewhere once they see it.

You could get a battery powered LED motion sensing light over the door, I have one round by the bins (I can't tell the blue bin from the black one when its dark), cost me less that £10 for a pair and the AA batteries last for ages. Then maybe add an old webcam or a hole that might be a webcam with an appropriate label, no need to wire it to anything. Nothing is 100% secure but your shed need to look more of a challenge than one down the road.

In addition to the anchors for tying the shed down I was going to add a couple more for hard locking points. Had a few moderately pricey bikes over the years so got a small collection of suitably tough gear to secure it with.

The door will face the back of the house and be within three meters of a motion activated flood so reckon that should suffice. We're in a low-risk area (such as that's possible) and there's no through-traffic so the most likely risk is from someone who's specifically targeting us. I'm more inclined to keep it low-key and not have it look like I'm storing interesting stuff. 'No one here but us lawnmowers and garden chairs' type thing, which obviously means I need to reconsider the windows so as not to give too much away.

 

[Richard_C]

You could use obscured or frosted glass, or for less money stick frosted grey vinyl to the inside, even the stuff you get to cover books will do if windows are small. You can't see into my garden shed cos I've not cleaned the algae off the glass for 20 years.

 

[MikeG.]

Have an OSB internal shutter that hinges up out of the way when you need light. No-one can see in, and anyone smashing the window to get in will have to smash the OSB too.

 

[Pedropete]

Have an OSB internal shutter that hinges up out of the way when you need light. No-one can see in, and anyone smashing the window to get in will have to smash the OSB too.

Funnily enough I'd considered internal shutters for the workshop but wrote it off due to insufficient internal space to swing them open. The windows as designed aren't big enough to gain entry as they're only 150mm tall, so it really is only the window shopping factor I'm concerned about. This is all reminding me that I also need to beef up my workshop security, so that'll be happening in fairly short order after building this.

You could use obscured or frosted glass, or for less money stick frosted grey vinyl to the inside, even the stuff you get to cover books will do if windows are small.

This is a good idea. I've got privacy roller-blinds in my workshop but something simpler for the shed would be good. The blinds are great for maintaining the mystery if anyone peeks over the garden wall. They also reduce UV damage to stuff inside the shed and mean we're not looking at piles of junk (and lots of clamps hanging across windows) when looking out from the house.