Garage Security

[LordFly]

Greetings - Interesting little You Tube video about an easily exploitable vulnerability to typical garage door openers that bad guys might use to break in to your home and how to stop them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSO_HTBHLFI

Cheers.
Steven

0:18 - "we're not going to show you how to break in"
0:47 - "Armed only with a wire hanger, thieve can either hook the cord to the release handle, or hook the release handle directly"

Uh, so which part are you not going to show? How to straighten a coat hanger, or how to lift the garage door once the safety release is unlatched?

[mluder]

Putting a wire tie in it to make it harder to operate is kind of counter intuitive in an emergency. An electrically operated garage door is usually the largest automatically moving piece of equipment you have in your home. There's a reason why they have so many built in safety features. Disabling or limiting that emergency release cable pretty much makes the only way to stop the door is pulling the plug that 10' up in the air or turning off the breaker (and that's even if it's in the garage and marked correctly). That latch is also the only way to mechanically break the connection of the door to the opener quickly.

The benefit of the zip tie as they demonstrated in the video, is that it can easily be broken in an emergency by simply pulling hard on the release cable - It's not strong enough to resist your full weight but plenty strong to resist a wire hanger.

Cheers
Steven

[Dangermouse]

Zip ties obviously come in different widths and therefore breaking forces. I think you would need to test your selected size zip-tie after installation with the shortest/weakest person in your household to make sure that they can open it.

Mind you, I'm not sure how many people in my household even know that emergency feature is there.

I looked at my door last night and I don't see how you would do this anyway. I have a decent overlap from the top of the door to the top of the door opening, so I didn't see anywhere to snake a coat hanger.

[Jonathan]

I looked at my door last night and I don't see how you would do this anyway. I have a decent overlap from the top of the door to the top of the door opening, so I didn't see anywhere to snake a coat hanger.

Ok. Ok. Wait a minute. How can this be? It said this can be done on the Internet here, so it has to be true, right? Are you telling me something on the Internet isn't true? Oh boy.

[Dangermouse]

No, that was on the Texas Internet. I'm on a different Internet here.

[mluder]

No, that was on the Texas Internet. I'm on a different Internet here.

Cheers
Steven

[LordFly]

I looked at my door last night and I don't see how you would do this anyway. I have a decent overlap from the top of the door to the top of the door opening, so I didn't see anywhere to snake a coat hanger.

1/4" drill bit would solve that problem pretty quick. Might turn a 6 second job into a 9 second job though.

But then again, a rock will open any window, and anyone who's decent with a set of lock picks can open most doors in 10 or 15 seconds. All that stuff is just there to keep out the honest people. If someone REALLY wants to break into your house, they will.