When customers are considering replacing their garage doors or see roller shutters at their neighbors’ houses, the question of whether roller shutters are actually secure comes up quite often. They certainly look solid, but the question is whether they are solid. For a door that connects to your home, this is a critical question to answer.
The honest answer is that it depends on the product you purchase. Roller shutter doors come in a variety of specifications, and the difference between an entry level model and a high-end model is significant enough to determine how secure your house is going to be.
What makes a roller shutter door secure?
It all starts with the gauge of the curtain. Thinner steel profiles are cheaper, and yes, they deflect less resistance than someone tries to force their way in. Without proper thickness, a curtain will deflect in ways that can damage the locking mechanism even before a direct attack is performed. Of course, thicker steel profiles cost more but are certainly worth it for a garage that integrates with the house.
The locking systems are not all the same so there are different ranges. Some shutters are designed to use just one central lock that engages with the guide channels. This kind of locking system is sufficient for normal use, but for use that involves pressure, other systems are more effective. For example, there are systems that use several locking channels that are located on the lower edge of the door, so that the pressure is distributed and the door is more difficult to open. It’s also worth checking whether the lock at the bottom of the bar is positively locked to the bottom. Some systems are designed so that the bottom lock does not engage, and shutters that are not locked at the bottom can be easily lifted from the outside, sometimes requiring less effort than the average person would expect.
Does it connect to the house?
This is a different situation. Having a roller shutter on a detached garage that is used to store garden tools is different to having a roller shutter door that is part of an integral garage with a door that leads directly to the house. In that case, the garage door becomes part of the security of the house, and when it is compromised, access to the rest of the house is often easily attainable.
When thinking about integral garages, it is also important to consider what is behind the shutter. If there is a solid, well-fitted internal door between the garage and the house, that is more comfortable to have the shutter as the outer layer. It puts a lot of reliance on the garage door when it is the only thing that is acting as a barrier between the inside and outside.
Electrical operation and its impacts on security
Most residential installations now use electrically operated roller shutters as standard. With good design, electric operators will hold the curtain in the closed position and add some resistance. Most modern systems have the anti lift feature built into the guides so the curtain cannot be pushed up even if the lock is defeated.
The consideration for your design is what happens if power is interrupted. If a circuit tripped, or the motor fails, some electric roller shutters are left relying on a manual override and in some cases, the manual override is not as secure as the powered operation it is replacing. It is important to know how the individual door design handles this in advance of the installation.
What you’re not going to get from roller shutters
Most residential roller shutters can be bypassed given time and the right tools, but this applies to every residential entry point and isn’t a particularly good standard to measure against. The important consideration is whether the door provides a reasonable level of resistance to opportunistic intrusions, delay to determined attempts, and provides no other obvious weak point when compared to the rest of the building.
Under those conditions, a correctly specified roller shutter does a reasonable job. The word correctly, however, suggests a lot of work — buying on the price alone, not understanding what the locking mechanism does, or not understanding what the mounting instructions were, is where most of the issues originate. The door is only a part of it.