With spring just round the corner, many gardeners will soon be out tending to their plants and shrubs, garden sheds are ideal for storing garden tools and equipment but don’t forget to secure these items.  Sheds have become high targets for thieves due to the valuable contents and low security levels, often sheds are left at the bottom of the garden and not given a second thought as to how vulnerable they are.

Although individually standard garden tools are not hugely expensive, but combine all tools required to look after a garden and the value soon starts to rack up, therefore it is important to protect these items.

Shed locks

Typically shed doors are protected by a padlock attached to the door by a simple padlock hasp, however these are often very cheap locks and not that secure.  We would recommend a high security padlock and hasp, look for products which have been awarded ‘Sold Secure’, these products have been independently tested and verified for their security protection.

Rim locks can also be used to good effect on shed doors, this type of lock is fitted to the inside edge of the door which offers security and weather protection to the lock.  Rim locks can either be of a lever type with a long ‘skeleton’ style key that is passed through the door to lock and unlock or Nightlatch locks which use a rim cylinder on the outside of the door.  Both types of rim lock offer good levels of security, with more expensive nightlatch locks offering high levels of security.

Locks are only as secure as the material they are attached to.  Shed walls and doors are normally single sheets of wood, this will mean that any lock that is fitted to a typical shed will often be stronger than the door it is attached to!  This leads to the common security conundrum, with a fairly weak door is it better to secure items inside a shed rather than protect a flimsy door that could easily be broken, leading to more repair expense to the owner.

Items stored inside a typical wooden garden shed can be easily protected by a cable style bike lock, this is used to connect all tools together, making them all impossible to remove, larger items such as lawnmowers should be locked and attached to a ground anchor, this could be screwed to the concrete base of the shed.  For increased defence against theft an alarm padlock could also be used, with a loud siren that is activated when moved, this will scare off any thieves and alert people.

Location and surrounding items of a shed are also important when considering security, a shed that is hidden from sight will be more vulnerable than one that is visible from the house or the street.  Also consider lighting, a solar powered light with motion sensor could be used to illuminate a shed and its surroundings.  Large bushes, especially those with sharp thorns can also be used to increase security by restricting places that an intruder can hide whilst trying to gain access to your shed!