Keeping your Shed Secure

What do you keep in your garden shed?

Generally you will probably store your gardening equipment, from wheelbarrow and lawnmower to hand tools. The garden shed’s contents is seldom limited to hoses, spades and other basic gardening equipment. More often than not other items are stored in garden sheds especially since many modern homes are decidedly lacking in storage space.

DIY enthusiasts will doubtless store other equipment, power drills, circular saw, ladders, cordless screwdrivers, hammers and possibly a portable workbench. Families often store camping and outdoor activity gear such as mountain bikes, surf boards and tents in their garden shed. As sheds are of a higher quality nowadays people sometimes use them as an extension of the home and even store treasured family heirlooms in them.

Taking these facts into consideration it is easy to understand why burglars will take great interest in sheds. Many homeowners show great concern and go to great lengths to ensure the safety and security of their homes. The lowly shed can easily be overlooked by the homeowner as their priority lies with where they and their family reside. Many people install burglar alarms in their homes and don’t even bother to lock their sheds. Meanwhile the opportunist burglar rubs his hands together at the thought of some easy money. How long would it take for a burglar to check he wasn’t being watched have his choice of your shed contents and drive off?

Not many people enjoy giving away their hard earned cash and with a few simply security measures the chances of a break in can be substantially reduced. Make sure you lock your shed and use a good quality padlock to do so, next assess the condition of the shed itself. Is your shed a sturdy outbuilding or a flimsy crate? Consider how hard it would be to break into, could you easily lever a panel using a crow bar? The more effort required on the burglars part to gain entry the less likely a break in will be.

Also think about how secure the shed is to its base, it is pointless having the world’s strongest lock if a couple of thieves could simply lift up the shed to steal your property inside. You should check the condition and fit of any shed windows, fitting grills to the windows can be an incredibly successful deterrent to potential burglars. It might be worth integrating your shed with your home burglar system if that is not a practical solution you can always opt for a singular stand alone battery operated alarm.

Good security practices within your shed can help prevent burglary of your home, for example if a burglar needed to get to the first story of yours or your neighbours homes he might gain entry to your shed and use your own ladder. This situation can normally be avoided by using a chain to secure your ladder to a secure anchor point. To gain access to the ladder would then take quite a bit of time, thieves do not waste time as they know the longer they spend perpetrating a crime the higher the chances are of them getting caught.

Jenny Austin is an expert in Sheds, for further information on how to choose your Wooden Shed , or which Garden Shed service to choose please visit beastsheds.co.uk.