Burglars often see garage doors as a tempting target to gain access to a business — they're often located in the back of a business, which hides their activity, and pulling a van up to a commercial garage door to help move stolen items is much less suspicious when done in a commercial area compared to a residential one. In order to keep your business safe, it's important to ensure that your commercial garage door is properly secured. Here are a few ways that you can deter thieves by improving the security of your commercial garage door.

Choose the Most Secure Type of Commercial Garage Door

The most secure commercial garage doors are made of high-gauge steel. This includes both roll-up doors and sectional doors. High-gauge steel is much more difficult to puncture or cut with ordinary hand tools, which helps to keep burglars at bay. While aluminum garage doors require less maintenance, it's much easier for burglars to cut an opening in them or to destroy the door and push it off of its track.

Wind load garage doors that are designed to resist high-speed winds are also more secure due to the increased impact resistance. High-speed winds place a considerable amount of pressure over the entire surface of the garage door, and wind load garage doors are designed to resist this force without collapsing inwards. Some burglars may try to force your garage door off of its track by slowly pushing it with a vehicle, and a garage door that can stand up to gale-force winds makes this task much more difficult.

Upgrade to a Rolling-Code Garage Door Opener

If you're not using a rolling-code door opener for your commercial garage door, you need to upgrade. Electronic garage door openers broadcast a signal to the door every time you open it, and burglars or unscrupulous employees can intercept this signal with a code grabber if they're standing nearby. This allows them to later broadcast the same signal in order to open your garage door. Rolling-code door openers prevent this because the signal used to open the door changes every time — even if a burglar intercepted the code, it wouldn't work to open the garage door. This prevents them from coming back after hours, opening your garage door and stealing items from your business.

Install a Commercial Garage Door Alarm

Commercial garage door services can install a timed alarm system on your garage door that broadcasts an alert whenever the door is opened after normal business hours. Once you or your on-site security staff receive the alert, they're able to assess the situation and call emergency services if necessary. A commercial garage door alarm improves your response time if burglars attempt to access your business after hours, which helps to keep your property safe.

By selecting a garage door that's made of high-gauge steel, using a rolling-code garage door opener to prevent easy access and using an alarm to improve your response time to intrusion, you deter theft attempts and safeguard your business' valuable property. If you need to secure your business' garage door, contact a local commercial garage door service — they can help you install a more secure garage door, upgrade your door opener and install an alarm system that alerts you when the door is opened after business hours.