Garden Office Security

On the 23rd of March 2020, the UK went into lockdown.

With high street businesses, offices, schools, sports venues and a whole host of other business shut overnight it meant that working from home was no longer the domain of the self employed but an essential part of day to day business life for all bar the essential workers who could not work from home.

As the lockdown days became weeks and the weeks became months, those that were working from home started to make the most of the situation. For those lucky enough to have the space, this involved adding a Garden Office. Whether converting a  garden shed or building a new structure, hundreds of Garden Office Spaces popped up almost as fast as the Coronavirus sadly first appeared.

Garden Offices are the perfect solution for those wanting to create a dedicated working space at home that is not their kitchen table and offers complete privacy and minimal distraction from day to day home working life.  While nationwide restrictions have now eased and people are able to return to the office, many businesses in the UK are now offering flexible working that allows employees to work both from home and at work.

With the popularity of working from home continuing, the garden office only looks set to become a more common site as working from home becomes a lifestyle choice.  But with more and more garden offices, it presents security issues and potentially prime hot spots for intruders.  After all, a garden office may be filled with office equipment, confidential paperwork and other valuables that are ripe for theft.  And that is why, on the two year anniversary since Covid-19 lockdown restrictions first came to pass, we wanted to offer a selection of Garden Office Security Tips to help you protect your home working space going forwards.

1 – Structurally Strong Office

If you can access the garden office simply by unscrewing a few bolts or lifting a door off its hinges – this is not a structurally secure office.  Sheds are usually made from flimsy materials as they only need to house garden equipment. Garden offices need to be as secure as your home and present intruders with as difficult a task as they would have breaking into your actual house. Do the windows have multi point locking systems?  Does the door open inwards to prevent intruders from attacking the hinges? And can the walls of the office withstand anything less than specialist building tools, time and effort from an intruder to penetrate?

2 – Out of site and locked away safe

There are two things that intruders look for when steaking out a property.  Access and easy of stealing valuables.  If you leave a laptop, expensive office furniture and other valuables in plain site in your garden office, you are inviting a closer look from the robber.  If you can, always remove valuables from a garden office over night or at least invest in a security safe where you can lock up valuable items, documents etc.  A safe can also be a great way to protect items in the event of a fire or flood (depending on the quality of safe).

3 – Access Control

Locks come in all shapes and sizes.  Insurance companies will commonly require an anti-snap 5 lever mortice lock that has a BSI Kitemark as this is generally regarded as one of the best locks for door security.  You can take it further however with keyless access control systems.  Access Control Systems can come in the form of access cards, keypads with 4, 6, 8 or more entry pin codes and even biometric scanners.  It may all sound quite high tech but being able to control access to your office is crucial.  Whether that be through a recommended, secure key lock system or more elaborate security is entirely up to you.  But ask yourself this – what are the possessions of my garden office really worth?

4 – Intruder Alarms

Security Systems are a great way of protecting your home office from intruders.  An intruder alarm can act as a vital, visual deterrent as the bell box mounted to the exterior of the garden office acts as a warning sign to intruders that the structure is protected.  Intruder alarms can use various types of sensor all connected to a central control panel system.  Motion detection scanners, magnetic seal and glass breaking sensors are the easiest to install and can help to protect your garden office from being broken into without the risk of a loud intruder alarm blaring out and waking you and your neighbours whilst simultaneously alerting our Manned 24 Hour Monitoring Team.

5 – CCTV Systems

Intruder alarms are a great way of deterring thieves and CCTV Cameras are like the icing on the cake.  Thanks to biometric scanning, thermal imaging, motion detecting LED lighting and so much more, CCTV cameras can easily capture intruders and make it a lot harder for them to escape justice than ever before.

CCTV systems can be connected to your intruder alarm and can even notify you via phone, text or email with real time updates regardless of where you are in the world!

6 – Location, Location, Location

If your garden is in plain view from the street, then it is a logical assumption that your garden office is in plain view.  If you leave valuables in your garden office over night, it can allow thieves to see what they might want to steal without even having to access your garden space.  How can you obstruct their view of your garden office?  Likewise, how secure is your garden?  Do you have motion detecting lighting? Is the side gate locked?  Think of how you would access your garden spaces if you were the intruder.  The harder you make it and the more clearly secure you make the office, the less appealing and harder it will be for an intruder to gain access. Garden fences should be strong, sturdy and high enough that an intruder would find it difficult to climb over.  Roses produce lovely looking flowers but their thorns also act as a great security deterrent for anyone thinking of leaping over a fence covered in them.

7 – Speak to the experts

At HF Fire & Security, we are backed up with NSI Gold and NSI Fire Gold accreditation so that we can operate to the highest possible industry standard and guidelines across the UK.

Our team can advise you on all types of security system that you should have, giving you the very best in security to suit your needs.  We can review your domestic or commercial property and provide recommendations on what products, system design and installation requirements you should have.

With senior-level hands-on management from initial planning to final handover in everything from facilities management services to advanced communication systems; we our incredibly proud of the services that we can offer our customers. It all adds up to a service fully focused on protection and delivering your requirements on time and on budget – because anything else, quite simply, won’t do.

Find out more

If you would like to know more about our range of security system that can protect garden offices, examples of the work we have done in this sector or if you have any questions about bespoke security services, please call us today on 0800 783 9480 or email info@hf-group.co.uk.

Year round maintenance and servicing

With branches across the UK, we can provide year round call out cover for security system maintenance, servicing and repairs.

Safety and security are, as with everything we do at HF, paramount. And with security and fire safety services tailored to your size, complexity and bespoke requirements; we are proud to offer a 24/7 call out service as part of an extensive aftercare package that ensures you stay secure all day, every day.