What do I Look for in Home Safes?
Home safes can be a great help if you have plenty of valuables at home to protect. From important documents to jewelry and cash, home safes are a great way to protect important items in a home. There are several choices to make after deciding a home safe would be a good idea. The first of those choices is a burglar or fire safe or a hybrid safe.
Burglar Resistant Home Safes
- Designed to resist opening attempts. The goal with burglar home safes is to protect valuables from thieves and withstand attempts to be opened. In fact, burglar safes are rated for the amount of time they can remain closed while an expert with high-tech equipment attempts to open the safe. The most common safes have 15- or 30-minute ratings.
- Must be property secured. If the safe can be carried away, a burglar with enough time will be open the safe. So burglar safes must be secured to the floor or into a solid wall. That stops the thief from carrying them off and the resistance – thick walls made of steel and a door to resist drills and torches – is often enough sufficient. Time is usually of the essence to a burglar, who will not have up to 30 minutes to try to open a safe, in most instances.
Fire Resistant Home Safes
- Different construction to resist fires. These home safes have thicker doors than burglar safes and a different insulation and seal to resist even the most intense fires. They are designed to keep documents and even media like computer disks and camera film safe in a fire.
- ABC ratings. Most home safes designed for fire protection are rated based on a scale on the protection the safe offers in a particular fire for a certain period of time. Class C safes offer 1-hour protection in fires up to 1700 degrees. Class B offers 2-hour protection up to 1850 degrees and Class A provides 4-hour protection up to 2000 degrees.
Other Considerations for Home Safes
- What are you protecting? Tell your home safe expert what materials or objects you most want to protect – from jewelry, cash and records to guns, finance records and antiques or unusual items.
- What size of safe is necessary? This question will also help answer how much money you are likely to spend. Is there a small statue or antique of a certain size that requires a safe largest enough so it can fit inside?
- Where will the safe be located? If the greatest fear is burglary, then you likely want a safe built into the floor or wall so burglars can’t carry it off. If the concern is a fire or flood, you may want a safe that is portable if you are evacuating from such a risk.
- What locking mechanism do you prefer? Once again, your lock expert can be considerable help with this decision. There are electronic key pads and dial locks that are both very popular, as well as key locks.