Are Cheap Padlocks Any Good | When a £20 Lock Is Fine and When It Isn't
CEN grades, closed versus open shackle, Sold Secure ratings explained. A Lewes locksmith tells you exactly where a cheap padlock is fine and where it's a false economy.
Every hardware shop in Lewes, from the Cliffe High Street independents to the Newhaven retail parks, sells padlocks for under £20. Shiny, solid-looking things. Heavy, even. And every week someone asks me whether they're any good.
The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes absolutely not. The mistake is treating all padlocks as the same category of object. They're not.
The myth: a heavy padlock is a secure padlock
Pick one up in a shop and it feels reassuring. Solid brass body, chunky shackle, satisfying click when it closes. The weight says security. Weight, though, is just metal. It tells you nothing about how the lock cylinder resists picking or shimming, how the shackle resists bolt-cutters, or whether the body will survive a freezing attack with an aerosol can and a hammer.
I've opened padlocks costing £18 in under forty seconds with a shim cut from an aluminium can. I've done it in car parks, on gates, on shed doors. The owners had no idea. They felt secure.
What the ratings actually test
Two systems matter here: CEN grades (a European standard, EN 12320) and Sold Secure ratings (a UK testing house backed by police and insurers). They're not the same thing and they don't always agree, but between them they tell you more than any amount of heft.
CEN grades 1 to 6
| Grade | What it broadly resists | Typical price range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Almost nothing. Finger pressure, basically. | Under £10 |
| 2 | Very basic attack. Thin shims, light force. | £10 to £25 |
| 3 | Light tools. A determined amateur with basic kit. | £20 to £50 |
| 4 | Heavier tools. Angle grinder resistant for a short period. | £40 to £90 |
| 5 | Sustained attack with power tools. | £80 to £200 |
| 6 | High-security. Specialist tools only. | £150 upwards |
Most of those £20 padlocks from the DIY shed sit at grade 1 or 2. The packaging won't say that. It'll say things like "hardened steel shackle" or "5-pin cylinder", which are true statements that mean very little on their own.
Sold Secure
Sold Secure tests against a timed attack and gives Bronze, Silver, or Gold ratings. Gold is where you want to be for anything you actually care about. A padlock like the Abus Granit 37/55, the Squire SS100CS, or the Abloy PL362 sits at Gold or equivalent. They cost £60 to £150. That's a real number, and it's worth knowing upfront.
Where a cheap padlock is genuinely fine
I'm not going to pretend there's no use for a £20 padlock. There is.
- A garden gate that leads to the front door anyway, so the gate isn't your security perimeter.
- A trailer hitch cover or alloy wheel lock used as a deterrent alongside other measures, not as the sole line of defence.
- Securing something low-value from opportunist interference: a wheelie bin shelter, an allotment gate on a site where nothing is stored overnight.
- Luggage locks. A grade 1 padlock on a suitcase zip isn't stopping a determined thief, but it keeps the zip closed in transit, which is all you need.
In these cases, the padlock's job is to slow down casual interference and signal that someone will notice. A £20 lock does that. Fine.
Where it's a false economy
This is where the myth causes real harm.
The garden shed with tools in it. Tradespeople in Ringmer, Plumpton, and around the BN8 villages lose thousands of pounds of kit every year from shed break-ins. A £20 padlock on a hasp is not a security measure. An attacker with bolt-cutters will be through a standard open-shackle padlock in three seconds. Through the hasp screws in about the same time, because most shed door hasps are fixed with screws short enough to pull with a screwdriver.
The garage with a car or motorbike. A motorcycle parked in a Nevill Estate garage, secured with a chain and a budget padlock, is not secure. The chain matters too (a hardened security chain, not a hardware shop chain), but a grade 1 padlock is the weak point an attacker will find first.
Storage units and outbuildings used commercially. Small businesses in the Malling area or down towards Seaford often secure stock in outbuildings between jobs. If your tools or equipment represent thousands of pounds and your insurance requires a minimum security standard (check your policy wording: many now specify Sold Secure Silver or Gold for outbuilding contents), a £20 padlock may also be invalidating your cover without your knowing.
Open shackle versus closed shackle
This matters more than most people realise. An open-shackle padlock exposes a long loop of shackle on either side of the body. That's where bolt-cutters go. A closed-shackle design shrouds the shackle so the cutting jaws can't get purchase. For any outdoor, permanent application, closed shackle is the minimum sensible choice. The Squire SS series and Abus Granit range both offer closed-shackle models at reasonable prices.
A closed-shackle padlock at grade 3 or 4 costs £40 to £80. It's not glamorous. But for a Landport or Southover shed with £2,000 of garden machinery in it, it's the right call.
The hasp problem nobody mentions
A padlock is only as good as the fitting it sits in. A grade 5 padlock through a cheap hasp fixed with 25mm screws into a softwood door frame is not a grade 5 installation. The hasp rips off before the padlock is touched. If you're upgrading a padlock, upgrade the hasp at the same time: a heavy-duty locking bar or a closed-shackle staple, fixed with coach bolts that go through the door and are secured with nuts and washers on the inside. That combination costs maybe £30 extra and transforms what you've got.
So, are cheap padlocks any good?
For the right job, yes. For the jobs people actually buy them for, mostly no. The shed in Wallands with the lawnmower, the garage in Kingston with the motorbike, the commercial van parked outside the Uckfield unit overnight. Those need a Sold Secure Gold closed-shackle padlock on a through-bolted hasp, not a shiny £20 object that weighs a lot and opens with a shim.
The price gap between a false sense of security and actual security is about £40 to £80 for most domestic applications. That's a reasonable spend to protect equipment worth ten or fifty times that amount.
If you're not sure what you've currently got, Fort Secure covers Lewes and the BN postcodes and can usually get to you in under 30 minutes. We'll tell you honestly on the phone whether it's worth us coming out or whether you just need to order a specific padlock online. No pressure either way.
Priya Nair, Security and standards specialist
Priya is the one who reads the test reports. She handles the survey work, the insurance questions and anything where the British Standard actually matters, and she will happily explain why the number on the box is not the number that counts.
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