Frequently Asked Questions for Choosing the Correct Safe

Buying a safe today can be an adventure, there are decisions to be made before you star shopping, how you make those decisions will determine how happy you will be with your purchase.

1. How do I decide what kind of safe I need?
2. Where should I keep my safe?
3. Should I buy my safe with an electronic lock?
4. I have an antique safe, would it still be reliable?
5. Where should I buy my safe?

How do I decide what kind of safe I need?

The most important thing you need to know is what are you trying to protect, and what are you trying to protect it from.

Many home and business owners are using the wrong safe for the risks they are trying to protect against. Many are putting their cash and valuables into their fire or record safe, many are putting their records into a burglary safe, and many are putting their computer data into their regular record/fire or burglary safe.

Understanding how a safe is constructed, why it is designed and constructed that way, and what risks it is meant to protect against is critical information for choosing which safe to use.

• A fire/record safe is designed to keep the internal temperature below 350 degrees Fahrenheit, paper chars at about 400º, for a minimum period of time usually expressed in minutes or hours. One of the ways it does this is by converting trapped moisture to steam as it gets hot. This works very well for paper records, not so well for items that may be damaged by moisture.

• A media safe is designed to keep the internal temperature below either 125 or 72 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the media to be protected. Media safes do not use a wet fill and do not employ moisture to do their job. You can keep paper records in a media safe, however media safes are much more expensive than the typical fire safe.

   

  • Fire/record & media safes are made with thin metal or composite enclosures or skins that contain the fill material, these materials are thin to reduce weight and reduce heat transfer. These thin materials do not afford, nor are they meant too, much protection against forceful attack. The locking device on fire/record or media safes is meant to keep honest people honest.

   

• A burglary safe is designed to protect money and other valuables from theft. They are built with heavy, thick metal plates or other materials that are meant to deter attack from tools. You will see many ratings used to describe burglary safes "B", "C", or "E" rate, TL-15, TL-30, TL-60, TLTRTX-60, are common. The single letter ratings are old insurance industry ratings and are becoming less common. The TL ratings are UL® ratings and identify the attack method and the attack time for the test. TL is for tool resistance and covers most tools that might be employed in an attack, TR is for torch resistance, TX is for explosives resistance. Burglary safes generally do not afford any fire protection, there are some dual rated safes that will afford limited protection against theft and fire they will be labeled as such and are usually more costly.

• For more information on safe ratings and labels check the following sites: www.klsecurity.com , www.maximumsecurity.com , www.deansafe.com

Back to Top

Where should I keep my safe ?

The following suggestions would apply to most home or business situations.

• If you are buying a wall safe, you should be sure of what is on the other side of the wall you are considering, if the safe is deeper than 4 inches, it will protrude into that space, in this instance a wall that backs into a closet or cupboard may work well. The other consideration would be if you plan to hide the safe behind a picture etc., you would want this to look like a normal place to hang a picture, and the subject of the picture to belong in the surroundings. Another place to consider for a wall safe could be a shelf in a closet.

• If you are buying an In-Floor safe which is usually installed in a concrete floor or encased in a concrete block and then placed on the floor. Your likely options will be a basement, garage or the lowest level of the home.

• If your safe in installed in a concrete floor anything placed in the safe should be adequately protected from water. Whenever there if a fire, water will most likely be used to fight it, in-floor safes are almost never watertight.

• Floor safes also do not usually carry any kind of fire label, testing agencies have no control over the final installation and therefore cannot certify that it is truly fire resistant. In reality a properly installed floor safe should be highly fire resistant.

• All safes, depending of their size and what it kept in them can be very heavy, if placed on any above grade floor, you may want to check with an engineer or building inspector to be sure the floor where you want to place it can support that amount of weight.

• If your safe is designed so it can be bolted to the floor, doing so would make it much more difficult for a thief to move it.

• In some cases a closet may be a good spot, it may be difficult to get in place, however a thief would also have a hard time getting it out.

Back to Top

Should I buy my safe with an electronic lock?

• Electronic safe locks are easier for some people to open, persons with arthritis, of older people may find it easier to push buttons than to turn dials.

• On the negative side, most service requests on safe locks involve electronic locks, there is a wide range of these locks available and many different configurations, the time a safe technician spends diagnosing and repairing a problem can mount up.

• Modern mechanical safe locks work very well, once you are shown the proper way to operate them, they are very easy to open. They are also very reliable.

Back to Top

I have an antique safe, would it still be reliable?

• Many older burglary safes are still very reliable, if the lock is still in good working order an has been serviced by a qualified safe technician, there should be no problem. If your safe has ever had a hole drilled in it the UL® labels should be removed. If you plan to use your antique safe for storage of valuables you should have it inspected by a qualified safe technician.

• Antique, and really any 15-20 year old record/fire safe would be a different story. The insulating fill material especially in antique safes will deteriorate with exposure to temperature extremes and time, you should be very suspect of keeping items you wish to protect from fire in an older fire safe.

• You can locate a qualified safe technician at

  • Safe & Vault Technicians Association (SAVTA) www.savta.org

Back to Top

Where should I buy my safe?

• Many types of businesses sell safe today, you could choose form a safe and vault dealer, a professional locksmith who sells safes, an office supply store, a "big box" hardware store, a department store, a discount store, even the Internet. Safes are expensive, you don't want to buy the wrong one. A few things to consider before you decide to shop are:

  • The safe dealer and the professional locksmith make part of their living selling and servicing safes, they have the training and expertise to recommend correct safe for your needs. Buying from a local dealer assures that you will be able to get competent warranty or service work quickly.

  • Would you trust the same person who answers your plumbing problem to also be an expert on choosing a safe?

  • Buying on the Internet, may save money up front, however freight might be an issue, safes are very heavy, how will you move it off of the truck and into place in your home or business? If it needs warranty or service work, who is going to do it?

Back to Top

Jim Newell
Copyright © 2001  SecureYourStuff. All rights reserved.
Revised: 06/25/08.