Using A Shed Alarm

A shed alarm can help to protect your shed and the valuables within it. Gardening, leisure equipment and home office items are expensive to replace if someone were to break into your shed and help themselves to your belongings. By using a shed alarm you can deter would-be robbers from getting too far into the building.

The first thing to consider is ensuring that the contents are covered by some form of insurance against theft. This may be an extension of your home insurance policy, make sure that you read the fine print and contact them if necessary to check that you are covered. You may need a specialist policy, if you are running a small business from your shed.

Next, does the simple appearance of having an alarm system deter people who don't belong there?

Security shortcuts

Do those security short cuts really work? Only you can decide that. But many people have been able to avoid being broken into by simply fixing up a camera and putting signs at points of entry to the garden. They can be enough to make a burglar stop and think about whether or not the cameras are on and real or just a way to deter them from their prize. Burglars do know that people put up these items as deterrents but they have no way of knowing for sure what is and isn't real.

Some people even go so far as to hook up CCTV cameras, either real or fake, that contain motion sensors. When they detect movement near them, they move. If you were a robber and saw a CCTV camera move, would you stick around to find out if it was real or not? Probably not. While there are some burglars that get lucky and still break in even with the evidence of possible deterrents around, many simply refuse to take the chance. And that is good for you and your property.

Your shed alarm options

There is a wide range of alarm systems and options that you can choose for your shed to protect your belongings. The main options are outlined below. At the very bottom of the page please tell us what you use for shed security and what has (and has not) worked for you.

Sensors

There are couple of types of sensors to detect if someone is trying to gain access to your shed:

The most simple type consists of an electrical contact being broken to trigger an alarm. The electrical contact can be battery operated or hard-wired into the electrical system of the shed if there is one. The contacts can be housed at points of entry such as the windows or on the door of the shed in such a way that improper opening of the door or window will set the alarm off.

A more advanced type of alarm uses PIR (Passive Infra Red) technology that detects movement to trigger the alarm. The movement has to be substantial enough to indicate the mass of a human and not just an animal, otherwise you could be running to your back door looking for prowlers every the next doors cat passes by.

Alarms

Once again there are a couple of types:

The most basic type of alarm consists of a siren or bell that makes a noise at or in the shed and hopefully sends the burglar running away.

The second type of alarm sends a remote signal to your home or monitoring service, quietly indicating that someone is breaking into your shed and allowing you or your monitoring service to alert the police.

Power supply

If it is at all possible, try to hook your shed alarm to your mains electric circuit. This will ensure that you don't run into problems such as batteries dying when you're not at home. A battery powered backup system is not a bad idea for those times when the electricity is out, but you will need to make sure that the batteries have enough juice to trigger the alarm at all times.