One Passed. One Failed in Under 60 Seconds.

Put two roller garage doors side by side and most people could not tell them apart. Same slatted curtain, same guide rails, same neat box above the opening. From the kerb, a budget door and a premium one look almost identical.

That is exactly why SWS UK, the Cumbrian manufacturer behind the SeceuroGlide range we install, decided to stop talking about quality and start filming it. They put two doors through the same series of controlled break-in tests at their in-house test facility. One was their SeceuroGlide Excel. The other was a generic roller door of the type sold all over the internet.

The Excel kept the intruder out. The generic door failed every single test in under 60 seconds.

The tests: cut, push and lift

The test methods were not invented for the cameras. They replicate the attack methods used by the Loss Prevention Certification Board (LPCB), the independent body that certifies physical security products in the UK. Three attacks were carried out on each door:

• Cut: attacking the curtain with hand tools to open up a gap
• Push: forcing the curtain inwards to break it out of its guides
• Lift: attempting to force the door upwards from the bottom

These are the techniques an opportunist burglar actually uses. No angle grinders, no specialist kit, just bodily force and the kind of tools that fit in a coat pocket.

On the generic door, each attack succeeded within a minute. The curtain gave way, the guides let go, and the door lifted enough for someone to get inside. On the SeceuroGlide Excel, none of the three attacks gained entry.

You can watch the footage for yourself on the SWS UK videos page, and Secured by Design covered the tests in detail in their own article.

Why one door survived and the other did not

The difference is not visible from the street. It is in the engineering decisions you cannot see once the door is installed:

• The curtain. Cheap doors use thin, lightweight aluminium slats that can be cut or flexed apart. A quality insulated curtain uses thicker, foam-filled slats that resist cutting and spread the load of an impact.
• The guides. Shallow guide rails let a curtain be pushed or pulled out. Deeper guides with proper curtain retention keep the slats locked in place under force.
• The locking. The SeceuroGlide range locks the curtain against lifting as standard, so the door cannot simply be heaved upwards.
• The certification. The SeceuroGlide Excel was the first roller garage door in the UK to achieve LPS 1175 Security Rating 1, the LPCB's standard for resistance against opportunist forced entry. To earn it, the door had to survive a series of timed attacks that go well beyond what ordinary garage doors are tested against. It is also accredited under Secured by Design, the official police security initiative.

As Martin Fletcher, SWS UK's Commercial Director, put it: "Roller garage doors are visually very similar from all manufacturers, so it was important that we found a way of highlighting the quality and strength behind the SeceuroGlide range."

What is behind a cheap roller door quote

If you are gathering quotes for a new roller garage door, you will almost certainly come across prices that look too good to be true. This is usually why. A door that costs hundreds of pounds less has to save that money somewhere, and the savings hide in the places you cannot see: slat thickness, guide depth, curtain retention, locking and motor quality.

Your garage door is often the largest moving entrance to your home. For many properties it is also the most direct route to the house itself, or shelters thousands of pounds worth of tools, bikes and vehicles. Sixty seconds of resistance is the difference between a burglar moving on and a burglar inside.

That is why we quote SWS SeceuroGlide doors rather than the cheapest curtain we could buy in. Our insulated roller garage doors start from £1,400 fitted, and every installation is carried out by our own team, surveyed properly and supported after the job is done.

Talk to us about a roller door that has proved itself

We are a trusted supplier and installer of SWS garage doors, and we have fitted SeceuroGlide doors across Grantham, Lincolnshire and the East Midlands for years. If you would like to see the quality up close, visit our Grantham showroom and put your hands on one.

You can read more about our full range on our roller garage doors page, or get in touch for a free survey and a fixed price quote. We will happily talk you through exactly what your money buys, right down to the slats.

If you want to know more about how GDCG can help your home improvement project get in touch using the details below:

Telephone: (0)1476 833131

Email: [email protected]