Garage locks · Greater Manchester
The garage is where the expensive things sleep.
Get a price in 2 minutes
Tell us what's happened. We ring you straight back with a fixed price.
- From £45
- 30-75 min
- Ground anchors
- No call-out fee
Add up what is in your garage. Bikes, tools, a mower, maybe a motorbike, the chest freezer, the thing you are storing for your brother. Then look at the lock: usually a single centre handle fitted in about 1978, and a side door with a lock nobody has ever considered.
The four garage doors
Up-and-over
The classic. One centre handle, two side latches on cables. The failure: cables stretch, latches stop reaching, and people force the handle until the spindle snaps. £45-120.
Roller
Usually electric, usually no key at all, and a manual release cord inside that is exactly as secure as the gap around the door. £55-140. Shutter locks →
Side door
The one that gets used and the one nobody upgrades. Frequently a 2-lever mortice or a cheap cylinder. £45-140.
Sectional
Modern, multipoint-ish, and the lock is usually part of the operator. Failures tend to be the mechanism, not the lock.
The one that matters more than all of them
The door from the garage into the house.
People fit an internal-grade lock to it because it looks like an internal door. It is not. It is an external door with a garage in front of it, and the garage is often the easiest thing on the property to get into.
Once somebody is inside your garage, the roller door is shut behind them, nobody can see them, nobody can hear them, and they are working on a door with a £9 lock on it at complete leisure. That is a better position than they would ever get at your front door.
That door wants an external-grade lock, ideally BS3621. £65-140. Check your policy too: some name the garage-to-house door explicitly.
Up-and-over: the cable problem
An up-and-over locks with a centre handle that pulls two cables to side latches. Cables stretch. The latches stop reaching their keeps. So the handle needs forcing, then it needs forcing hard, then the spindle shears and the door is either stuck shut or not locking at all.
Sound familiar? It is the same story as a multipoint gearbox: adjust the cables at £45-70 while it is only stiff, or replace the mechanism at £90-150 after it goes.
The thing that actually protects the contents
A ground anchor. Bolted into the concrete, with a decent closed shackle padlock and chain through the bike or the mower.
Because the honest truth is that a garage door is a garage door: it is large, it is thin, and given ten quiet minutes it opens. What stops somebody leaving with your bike is not the door. It is that the bike is bolted to the floor. £70-140 fitted and it is the best money on this page.
What it costs
| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| Up-and-over cable adjust and service | £45-70 |
| Up-and-over handle / mechanism replaced | £90-150 |
| T-handle or centre lock replaced | £45-90 |
| Garage side door, external-grade lock | £45-140 |
| Garage-to-house door, BS3621 | £85-140 |
| Ground anchor, bolted into concrete | £70-140 |
| Closed shackle padlock and hasp | £45-90 |
| Garage lockout, key lost | £65-110 |
Chorlton · Security upgrade · Residential locksmith
Questions people actually ask
My up-and-over garage door handle has gone stiff. What is that?
The cables have stretched. An up-and-over locks by pulling two cables from the centre handle to latches at each side, and over the years those cables lengthen, so the latches stop reaching their keeps properly. The handle then needs forcing, then forcing hard, then the spindle shears and the door is either stuck shut or not locking at all. Adjusting the cables while it is only stiff is £45 to £70. Replacing the mechanism after it goes is £90 to £150. It is the same story as a uPVC gearbox.
Is the door from my garage into the house a security risk?
It is frequently the weakest point on the entire property. People fit an internal-grade lock to it because it looks like an internal door, but it is an external door with a garage in front of it. Once somebody is in the garage the door is shut behind them, nobody can see or hear them, and they are working on a £9 lock at complete leisure, which is a better position than they would ever get at your front door. It wants an external-grade lock, ideally BS3621, at £65 to £140. Some insurance policies name that door specifically.
What's the best way to stop bikes being stolen from a garage?
A ground anchor, bolted into the concrete floor, with a closed shackle padlock and a chain through the frame. £70 to £140 fitted and it is the best money on this page. The honest truth is that a garage door is large and thin, and given ten quiet minutes it opens, whatever lock is on it. What stops somebody leaving with your bike is not the door, it is that the bike is physically attached to the building. Everything else is delay; the anchor is the thing.
My roller garage door has no lock at all. Is that normal?
Yes, and it is why they are worth thinking about. Most electric roller doors rely on the motor holding the door down and have a manual release cord inside for power cuts, which is as secure as the gap around the door allows. Adding a mechanical lock, a floor socket or a bullet lock is £55 to £140 depending on the door. If you keep anything valuable in there, it is worth doing, and worth pairing with a ground anchor rather than relying on the door alone.