How Safe Is Your Safe?

When considering buying or installing a new safe, there are many factors that come into play. However, the first question you must answer is what you intend to protect in your safe.

Examine The Contents

Is the purpose of your safe to hide a key outside in case you lock yourself out of the house? Are you hoping to protect the antique rifle your grandfather handed down to you? Or do you have a copy of your will or other important papers that you want to protect in case of a house fire? These are the kinds of questions that will help you begin to narrow down what kind of safe you need.

While safe manufacturers claim to sell those that meet the requirements of both fire and burglary, generally speaking you have to first assess which is your greater need. “Fire safes are reinforced with fire retardant materials but have little in the way of actual protection against unwanted entry. The typical burglary safe is built to withstand a considerable attack. But due to their reinforced steel frames and iron cladding, the burglary safe tends to act like an oven; effectively cooking the contents when exposed to heat or flame” (source: Valdes). For the purposes of this article, we will focus on the burglary safe; however within the category of burglary safe, there are even further break-downs – gun safes, diversion safes (i.e., made to look like a pop can), luxury safes, and even laptop safes.

How Valuable Are Your Valuables?

After determining what you desire to protect, the next step is to decide on a general budget. Since safes range in price from less than $10 for the stone diversion safe, to $49,000 for the SLS Gem Anti-lance TXTL60 (the bidding starts at $49,000), you have to know what you can afford. While not many of us will have a need for the $49,000 safe – which, by the way, is one of the rarest safes in existence since only 4 were ever manufactured – not many of us will have a need to protect the “precious jewels of Great Britain royalty,” (which is why the SLS Gem Anti-lance TXTL60 was created), either. Nevertheless, it helps to determine how much to spend on the safe once you have a clear picture of how valuable the contents are that will be housed inside.

Where Will You Put Your Safe?

If you are purchasing a stand-alone or diversion safe, then deciding where to put it is really a matter of convenience and space. But consider before you buy that the most popular method of safe-cracking is to “…simply steal the entire safe and move it to a location where the safe-cracker has the time and tools to take the safe apart and remove its contents” (source: Valdes). The obvious benefit of a built-in safe is that it cannot be removed, but the difficulty – especially when retrofitting into an existing home – is deciding where to put it.

There are two basic locations for the built-in safe: floor or wall. While the floor safe cannot be hauled off by a thief, it only takes one leak – or even an overflow from your bathtub – for water to seep into the safe and ruin any paperwork stored there. Also, it is very difficult to retrofit a floor safe for obvious reasons, which leads us to the better option – the wall safe.

A wall safe is “actually built into your wall and…can easily be concealed by a wall painting, a bookshelf or by a built in sliding panel” (source: Wagner).

This wall safe features a built-in picture frame with remote control access. To operate the safe, simply enter your access code (4-10 digits) on the remote control to deactivate the lock and then slide the door/picture frame to the right or left. The remote control uses RF technology. The remote control is designed to work at a distance of up to 45 feet and does not require line of slight to work. The remote control is powered by rechargeable batteries. Two (2) mechanical backup keys are provided for emergency access in case of battery failure. This wall safe has been specifically designed to be mounted into a standard residential wall with at least 2×4 construction and wall studs of at least sixteen (16) inches on center apart.An instructional installation DVD is included making installation a breeze (source: Nationwide Safes).

There are many types of wall safes, and this is just one example. However, the benefits are easy to see – it can be added to your home before or after construction, easily accessed, and well-hidden from thieves. And the price? This particular safe retails for $489.

Of course, if you really want to conceal your wall safe, you can have it installed inside your hidden room. Remember the picture that was at the top of this post? Were you able to locate the safe in that room? It’s actually in the hidden room behind the rotating cabinet.

In part 2 of “How Safe Is Your Safe?” we will discuss different types of locking mechanisms, as well as common mistakes that make your safe a target for thieves.