In the next couple of months we're going to be building an oversized two car garage at our farm. We don't live there full time and are actually not there more than we are.

I'm looking for any ideas to fortify the place, but am particulary interested in info on what overhead and entry doors to look at and where to find them.

Thanks in advance for any help.

for the garrage door, i would get a hydro swing door. uses hydrolics to swing the door out and up hinged at the top.
i think a one peice door is as secure as it gets.
steel entry doors without windows and antikick frames.

Most OHDs are structurally weak in their skin.

Because of their large surface area, making the skin heavy obviously results in a very heavy door.

The Hydroswing type door as mentioned can be built with a beefed up frame and say a 14 or 16 gauge corrigated skin and would be pretty tough.

Say a 12 x 12 and use a hangar door frame, just smaller.

Another option is a commercial rollup door, insulated.

The weakness here is that a vehicle can be rammed into the surface and distorting the surface can allow the face to be popped out of the tracks on either side.

The tracks however are very heavy angle and channel -unlike any home OHD, and the attachment to the building might be more likely to fail than the channel/tracks.

Cross spreader channels could be attached to the tracks and might be able to effectively resist a vehicle forced entry.

A low cost reinforcement option is to sleeve the floor 2 or 3 places behind the ODH and drop say a 4 inch sch 80 pipe into the holes. That would rattle the teeth of someone hitting the door with a vehicle.

The most effective vs cost might be the hydroswing plus the posts.

Less effective and lower cost is the rollup.

A 12 x 12 rollup, insulated, chain operated, with the very heavy welded channel and angle track-frame will run about $2600, and can be installed in a day by 3 skilled men with 2 small scissor lifts.

Critical to any GOOD door installation is to have the opening and floor plumb, straight, and level, to better than 1/4".

As far as the OP wanting to 'fortify' the oversized garage, forget using conventional frame construction.

Block, poured wall, Quonset, or conventional metal bldg [with a heavy corrigated siding] are the likely ways to go.

No flammables in the construction.

As the slab is poured for the floor, have the crew place a few sleeves in the concrete so that you can stand some sections of steel pipe up when you leave.  Just be sure that the sleeves are placed with enough clearance for the door hardware to not hit the posts.

Thank you very much for the thoughtful suggestions so far.

I was intrigued by the hydroswing door suggestion. Unfortunately, a Google search shows the Hydroswing Door company apparently is no more. Are there other companies that make this type of door under a different name?

I like the suggestions to set steel pipes behind the garage door. The new garage is being built on an existing slab. We're replacing a garage that was mostly destroyed by what we think was a tornado several years ago. I would need to figure out how to drill 4 to 5 inch diameter holes without compromising the integrity of the existing concrete. I'd really rather not bust holes with a sledge and back fill around the sleeves with Quickcrete.

As far as the steel entry door with anti-kick frame, any suggestions on where to look or what to avoid?

Drilling the holes is easy.

Rent a core drill and sleeve the larger hole so you have more strength in the concrete.

what about a standard over head door and one of thoose roll down steel grates over it like store fronts use?

ETA Grainger sells some crazy hinges. Maybe you could make a door or have a welder make one for you?

An interesting idea but I think having something like that on the outside would indicate something valuable on the inside and would encourage would be thieves to try harder to find an alternate entry point. I'd like to keep the fortifications as non-descript as possible.

Maybe you could take this one step further and have the hardware lock to the pipes.

hhmmm ..... What style will the new garage be?  If I could change anything about my garage it would be to NOT have the 3 window centered on each wall. I wish I took them out when it was re sided.

Poll barn with  steel walls.

I have something similar on my property about 15 miles from my house.  Remember this, you CAN'T keep out someone determined enough to get it.  There are just too many ways to get into a building.  

If you have power, get lots of motion lights for the outside.  

Fence it off with a gate.  Lock the gate even if you are there so that people don't associate the locked gate with no one being there.

Make friends with the neighbors.  Ask them to keep an eye on the place.  

Have enough insurance for the building and the contents.

Add plywood to the walls inside, thieves down here just walk up to steel buildings and use a cordless drill and nutdriver to back the screws out of the metal siding and go in through the walls.