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How to improve shed hinge security

The hinges on your shed door are vulnerable to attack and failure!

There are three main potential areas of weakness to consider when installing your hinges - here are some simple ways you can eliminate them...

There are three potential areas of weakness to consider when installing shed door hinges

• The gauge (thickness) of the metal the hinge is made from.
• Accessibility to the hinge pin.
• The type of screws or bolts used to fix the hinge in position.

As a general guide, for lightweight shed doors, the length of the hinge tongue should be at least one third of the width of the door. For heavy doors, the tongue should be half the door width. 

Gauge of Hinge Metal

Typically the shed door hinges supplied with kit sheds are manufactured from relatively thin metal, but the multiple fixing points and the overall width and height of the hinge, are designed to provide an acceptable level of security for general purpose use.

Investing in heavier duty hinges will help to beef up the security level, but you will probably need to use internal plates or braces to strengthen the structure at the hinge fixing points.

...an example of heavy duty hinges 

Accessibility to the Hinge Pin

A weakness of many shed hinges is the hinge pin (the metal rod that holds the two sections of a hinge together). 
In cheap hinges, the pin may be just hammered into the hinge to form a force fit.

If this is the case, then the pin can also be easily knocked out again which means the two hinge sections will separate, allowing the door to be opened from the hinged edge!

On higher quality hinges, the hinge pin will be inaccessible, being covered by weld, etc.

The type of fixings used to fit the hinge to the door and shed

Normally hinges are supplied with standard screws to fit them to the shed and door. These can easily be removed with a conventional screwdriver and are therefore a weak point.

As an alternative, consider replacing the standard screws with security screws such as one way Clutch Head or Sentinel screws.

Bear in mind however that in many sheds, the screws will be fixing into a relatively thin wooden structure so you may need to add extra wooden plates or battens on the inside to beef up the shed structure

Hinges fixed with screws only could leave your hinges open to pry attack

...so for maximum security consider replacing some of the screws with “through bolts” which are secured on the inside of the door / shed with nut and washer or nut and support plate.

To install a through bolt such as the coach bolt shown here, remove one or more of the screws in each section of the hinge and enlarge the screw hole to accept the bolt.

Ideally drill the hole so that the hole diameter is slightly smaller than the distance from corner to corner across the square section immediately below the bolt head – then hammer the bolt through the hinge – the square section will prevent the bolt turning as you tighten the nut.

To further improve your shed security we recommend using an effective shed alarm.

Do you need further help or advice?  -  call the friendly Insight Security help team - tel: 01273 475500

This message was added on Tuesday 29th September 2015