A subject that I often discuss with customers is how to secure their garages, usually attached garages. Most residential break-ins are through a door, very often a back door or garage side door. Those we usually treat like any other door, with a typical alarm contact. Some people don’t want us to mess with their roll-up garage doors, worrying that they’ll forget about the alarm being in a countdown state once they open the door to drive in. This is what I generally suggest for those folks.
First, if you have windows in the roll-up door as many do (usually one row right at eye level or so) put curtains or something in them. That alone is a great help since the scumbags don’t get the visual confirmation ahead of time that there’s something in there that they want to steal. They can assume that there probably is, but it’s better to not inform them that there definitely is.
Secondly, I point out to them that in addition to pulling the door up, the garage door opener also serves to hold it down, which is a good thing. But if they have the windows in the door as mentioned above, get rid of the (usually bright red) hanging emergency-release cord on the door-opener’s trolley. When the door is open (which is when homeowners most often see it), it’s hanging innocently in the middle of the room above the car. But when the door is closed, it’s right at the door, easy to reach and right at eye level. So if the door has even those small windows there, just breaking that one piece of glass lets the scumbag pull the rope and instantly the door can be opened. Once in, they simply pull the garage door back down, and the odds of the small broken window being noticed by anyone driving by are pretty low. The downside to removing the cord is the added inconvenience if you need to get the car out during a power outage and your opener doesn’t work, but imo that is more than outweighed by the reduced risk of having the cord so conveniently available to scumbags.
Lastly, if they don’t have a motorized opener I suggest they simply use some kind of physical blocking on the door track. This can be something as simple as a small bolt or even a carabiner through one of the holes in the track. I have one roll-up door that doesn’t have an opener on it since it’s just a storage room and not an actual garage space and only has a 7’ high opening. Personally I use a pair of wide-jaw vise grips to achieve the same track-blocking function. They’re very quick & easy to put on & off, they don't require a hole in any particular location, and they also have the side benefit of holding the door all the way open & out of the way. And nobody is getting the door open without creating a lot of work, noise and obvious destruction in the process.
First, if you have windows in the roll-up door as many do (usually one row right at eye level or so) put curtains or something in them. That alone is a great help since the scumbags don’t get the visual confirmation ahead of time that there’s something in there that they want to steal. They can assume that there probably is, but it’s better to not inform them that there definitely is.
Secondly, I point out to them that in addition to pulling the door up, the garage door opener also serves to hold it down, which is a good thing. But if they have the windows in the door as mentioned above, get rid of the (usually bright red) hanging emergency-release cord on the door-opener’s trolley. When the door is open (which is when homeowners most often see it), it’s hanging innocently in the middle of the room above the car. But when the door is closed, it’s right at the door, easy to reach and right at eye level. So if the door has even those small windows there, just breaking that one piece of glass lets the scumbag pull the rope and instantly the door can be opened. Once in, they simply pull the garage door back down, and the odds of the small broken window being noticed by anyone driving by are pretty low. The downside to removing the cord is the added inconvenience if you need to get the car out during a power outage and your opener doesn’t work, but imo that is more than outweighed by the reduced risk of having the cord so conveniently available to scumbags.
Lastly, if they don’t have a motorized opener I suggest they simply use some kind of physical blocking on the door track. This can be something as simple as a small bolt or even a carabiner through one of the holes in the track. I have one roll-up door that doesn’t have an opener on it since it’s just a storage room and not an actual garage space and only has a 7’ high opening. Personally I use a pair of wide-jaw vise grips to achieve the same track-blocking function. They’re very quick & easy to put on & off, they don't require a hole in any particular location, and they also have the side benefit of holding the door all the way open & out of the way. And nobody is getting the door open without creating a lot of work, noise and obvious destruction in the process.