Safes - Protect Your Valuables From Theft
and or Fire

Which items would you miss most if your house was broken into or destroyed by fire? Would it include; jewellery, family photos, treasured letters, important documents (wills, deeds, insurance policies (Including home inventory lists) , passports, credit cards), money and perhaps computer discs containing important personal information and photographs? Most of these items are probably currently stored in drawers, boxes and desks, which as well as being very vulnerable to fire are also very easy to break into.

Safes vary greatly in price, size, weight, shape, quality and effectiveness and should be rated or classified dependent on the degree of protection they offer, against burglary and fire, or both. Some cheap units aren't much more burglar resistant than a locked drawer. If they are not securely bolted down the cheaper light weight units may also be easy to carry away with all your valuables conveniently stored inside - all in one place. Units are available with key locking, combination locking or electronic key pad (code) locking, or in some cases a combination of key and electronic key pad.

Beware

Manufacturers who state that their safes are 'Burglar Resistant' or 'Fire Resistant' should be avoided, unless they can prove that they have been tested by the relevant authority (which varies from country to country) and are stamped to that effect. Documents should also be provided to state the various ratings that are complied with. 'Fire Resistant' could just apply to the materials that the unit is made from, not the protection it affords to the contents.

It is worth noting that during a fire the contents of a building will reach 1,000 degrees centigrade. During building fires, safes are often subject to impacts, by having walls and ceilings collapsing on to them or the units themselves falling through floors. They can even remain buried for long periods after the main fire has been put out. Under these conditions, due to their construction, temperatures can actually continue to rise inside the safe for several hours due to the heat sink effect. Paper actually starts to char above 170 degrees centigrade whereas magnetic media must be kept below 55 degrees centigrade or complete and total data corruption will occur.


Wall-Safes

Wall-safes often come in multiple sizes of brick heights and widths and can even be disguised as wall power points (these are more of a hiding place than a secure zone), or hidden behind pictures or heavy furniture. As they are built into the wall of the house they are often restricted in size by the thickness of the wall, often about 5 inches (12.5cm), in modern houses. They are not suitable for fixing into studwork walls. Some wall safes are fire resistant but very few are burglar resistant. This is due to the fact that they can often be easily prized out of the wall and taken away from the premises to be broken into later.


Floor-Safes

These are suspended between the floor joists after cutting a recess in the floorboards, or installed into a damp proofed recess cut into a concrete floor. Whilst inconvenient in many ways (moving furniture or rolling back carpet and bending down and kneeling to gain access), they offer quite good levels of security and are invisible to the burglar. Due to their siting however, they collect dirt and moisture and should be cleaned regularly. They are available in different sizes and formats to suit the application and the degree of security required.


Fire-Safes

Fire resistant units have the prime purpose of protecting valuable documents in a fire, but some products also offer protection against theft. These products as well as having a fire rating will also have a cash rating. Fire resistant safes offer only very limited protection for computer media.

Fire resistant data safes are designed to offer greater fire protection to the far more vulnerable type of products such as CD's, floppy discs and tapes, which can be permanently damaged by much lower temperatures than paper products. Valuable back up data should only be stored in this type of product. The minimum industry standard for data protection is a product with a 1 hour VDMA certificate, with most insurance companies requiring the 2 hour VDMA certificate.


Gun-Safes and Cabinets

Remember that a gun in the home increases the chances of murder, suicide and accidental injury. All guns should therefore be stored in secure gun safes or cabinets, in an unloaded condition, with the safety catch on and with ammunition locked away separately. The keys must be stored out of reach of children and away from both the weapons and the ammunition. Children should never be allowed to handle guns, even in the presence of a supervising adult. Regular checks should be carried out to make sure that the cabinets and their contents are still secure and that the contents are intact.

Gun safes and cabinets come in various sizes and shapes to suit the types and numbers of weapons stored. They should be fitted with strong high quality locks, concealed hinges and have adequate fixing points. Gun safes and cabinets are only as strong and secure as their fixings. Some manufacturers produce gun safes for installing in vehicles


Car Safes

Carrying and securing valuables in our vehicles is a subject that concerns many of us every time we travel, especially when we travel long distances to places we don't know well and stay away overnight. Locking items out of sight in the boot or the glove compartment is safer than leaving them on view, but not very secure when the vehicle is left for some considerable time. Many items like mobile phones, laptop computers, cameras etc. may not even be covered by your insurance in these situations.

Some manufacturers are now providing vehicle safes which can be fitted in cars to provide additional peace of mind and overcome these problems. These units would normally be secured in the boot of the vehicle by bolting through the boot floor or alternatively chained securely to the luggage hooks.


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