Creating the Ultimate Garage Doors & Security

Creating the Ultimate Garage:

Doors and Security Words: Will Beaumont

Noel Coward’s Mr Bridger in The Italian Job had it right. ‘Her majesty’s prison is there not only to keep people from getting out, but to prevent people from getting in.’ The sentiment can be easily adapted to your garage and, presumably, her majesty’s garage too. You don’t want anyone getting into it, and you don’t want your car getting out. Not unless it’s you driving it, of course.

We might want showroom-like garages or clinical workshops with fancy lights, clean cabinets and shiny floors, but the single most important task your garage needs to provide is security. Your can needs to be safely out of sight and out of reach from miscreants. It needs to be protected from the elements, from harsh weather and falling objects. Just ask me how much damage a nasty hail storm can do to your car. Thousands of pounds, that’s how much.

Assuming your garage, if you have one, is equipped with a roof – that’s not such a wild expectation, is it? – then your main consideration for keeping it secure will be the door. We’re back with Rob Hudson, owner of Garage Concepts, a company that transforms ordinary garages into stunning spaces for your car. They build them from scratch, too.

Along with slick appearances and fancy details, Rob’s advice has value for money at its core. His opinion on garage

doors stems from just that. ‘We don’t do cheap garage doors. It’s a false economy. If you go on my Instagram feed, you will see a video of me putting my fist through a cheap door. Don’t scrimp on things like your garage door.’

What about some wooden doors, they look lovely?

‘We’re forever removing wooden doors. Yes, they look very nice on a rustic building, but I don’t use wooden doors because I don’t believe they’re particularly fit for purpose. They bow, they require maintenance. In the winter they don’t close properly and sometimes there’s a bloody great gap where mice and rats can get through. The last thing you want is daylight around your garage door where vermin can get in.’ It’s not just thieves and vandals you need to keep out of your garage, it’s the tiny wire-eating upholstery-ruining pests you need to keep out and you can’t guarantee that with wood.

Sectional up-and-over doors aren’t to Rob’s taste either. ‘Ultimately, we are interior designers and if you go with a sectional door, you have half of your ceiling full up with framework, which defeats the object of having the feature ceiling or feature lighting.’ Rob’s issue with sectional doors isn’t just the aesthetics. ‘Sectionals, my view is you lose too much ceiling and consequently you lose too much potential access for further storage or a loft hatch.’

So come on then, what does that leave us with? A roller shutter door, that’s what. ‘With the roller doors, you only lose 300 millimetres of your ceiling, they’re nice and compact and create a clean space. When you walk through the door, you can see all of the ceiling and we can make a feature of that. They’re tried and proven, too. We only work with a brand called Aluroll. And that’s because they’re a British brand with a seven-year warranty and have a backup service that is second to none. These guys know their doors, they’re second to none. They’re also designed to be secure.’

A roller door is also suitable for the width that Rob thinks is appropriate for a garage door. He’s an advocate for one wide door, rather than the more standard two. ‘The reason a lot of modern build houses have two single doors on a double garage is that, when the housebuilder is doing all of their plots, it’s a lot easier for them to order a hundred single doors they can slap up. It’s a lot cheaper than going “well that requires a bigger door, that requires a bigger lintel.” Those doors are a standardised height and size, they’re roughly 2450 millimetres wide by 2200 high. If you’re driving a car such as a Ferrari 430, where the mirrors are quite predominant, you will struggle like hell to get your car through a standard-width single garage door.

‘I went to see a customer yesterday that had actually cut out the pieces of wood on the side of his garage door frame just so he could get his mirrors through. A standard typical door is not wide enough when you’ve got a hundred grand Ferrari with £4000 carbon mirrors. The last thing you want to do is be scuffing them.’

Opening up the front of people’s garages has become a mission for Rob and his company. ‘We do, I should think, anywhere between 50 to 80 pier removals a year. We will simply go in, prop all the roof up, remove both the doors, remove the pier, put in a span of 5.2-metre heavy-duty steel across the top, and bed it in correctly. Then we will put on one super-wide heavy-duty roller door that’s alarmed. All singing, all dancing, secured by design at the minimum specification.’

It’s not all about humongous doors with Rob. Smaller, much smaller pedestrian doors have their place too. ‘I wouldn’t be solely reliant on a big garage door for the simple reason that it’s a pain in the butt. If you just want to nip into the garage and pick up a hammer or a screwdriver, you’ve got to open up the main door. Then the neighbours see your pride and joy, or someone walks past. So having a pedestrian door is a good thing. I would recommend having a Latham’s steel door on the side of the building. A 19-point multi-locking door will cost you probably six or seven hundred quid, but it is extremely secure and, again, it will last a lifetime. You’ve got no further decorating, no warping, nothing like that.’

Short of erecting a replica of Pentonville at the bottom of your garden just to house your car, adding a roller shutter door and a steel side door to your garage is the best way to keep your motor safe. Plus it’d be a lot prettier than having a prison on your property.