Wyatt Earp

Home Safes – a Buyer's Guide

Home Safes – a Buyer's Guide

There are a variety of home security safes on the market today, ranging from the James Bond-ish hidden wall safes to the more demure variety that you'd expect to find at the mention of "home safes."  When you are in the market for a home safe, it's usually because you have some valuables you want to protect or because of some experience with loss of property due to fire or other catastrophe.  Whatever the reason that you are in the market for a safe place to keep your valuables, rest assured there are plenty of varieties of safes on the market to suit your needs and budget.

 

When you think of what a safe is, do you picture the Old West, with Wyatt Earp and family riding the range with their long rifles, protecting the damsels in distress with their steel wills and lead bullets?  If that's the kind of safe you picture, don't worry, Winchester® makes the same quality safe that the Earp brothers would have been used to.  But that's only one variety of safe.  A safe doesn't have to be a bank vault in its stature and price, though you can certainly opt for that style through Winchester® and other companies, like Sentry Safe ®.

 

What Should You Consider Before Buying Home Security Safes?

 

There are many different home security safes available, so many that you'd be hard pressed not to find what you need.  Some may be a bit cumbersome, and you'll have to be careful as you order to make sure you can get the safe into your home and up the flight of stairs.  This is especially true for condo or apartment dwellers, but no worry, because there are plenty of companies that can accommodate such customers, with a safe that's made to be modular.  This is built-in-place, and it gets the job done as good as any safe.

 

Before you do buy a safe, however, you need to be aware of what you'll store inside.  Is it going to be used for only paper documents?  Electronic storage media?  Precious metals or other valuables?  This is important, if not obvious, to know before you buy a safe.  You also want to be sure you get a safe that can be moved if you plan on moving at some point, which may mean you buy several smaller safes instead of one big one.

 

That being said, there are essentially 2 reasons people buy home safes: fire protection and theft protection.  The following safes vary in degree to their effectiveness at providing one or another form of protection, so be sure to check with the manufacturer and your insurance company for the level of protection you seek.  (Check with your insurance company so you can get a break in your premium, and they can guide you in what sort of breaks and incentives they offer.)

 

Two other factors you should consider: space and locking mechanism.  Wall safes and other hidden safes can really add to security, but also save floor space.  Be sure before you buy any home safes that you have a place to put them.

 

As far as locking mechanisms go, home safes come with a variety of locking mechanisms, from biometric (fingerprint, voice, retinal scan) to traditional lock-and-key, to the combination locks (both digital keypads and manual dial).  Biometric locks are great for gun safes, as long as you have a good model that reads your fingerprint fast.  They are also great if you misplace keys and forget combinations.  They are the most expensive type of lock, and many times can come as an after-market variety.  Keys and combinations have their strengths and weaknesses as well, but a combination of these three modes will provide the most security.

 

What Kind of Home Safes are Available?

 

• Wall Safes
• Floor Safes
• Standing Safe
• Diversion Safes
• Laptop Safes
• Gun Locker

There are other types of home security safes available, such as gun lockers and cabinets, strong rooms/hidden rooms (a la bomb shelters for home invasion or to escape tornados and other incremental weather and catastrophes, as well as to store more valuables and firearms), and data/media safes designed for protecting files stored on electronic storage devices.  Typically, these latter few are reserved for corporate use, but they have also seen a rise in residential use a well.

 

Let's look at each of the typical home safes.

Wall Safes – Like some James Bond prop, these are home safes built into the wall for added security and to save space.  They can be hidden behind a picture, though that's not the best placement since thieves watch television and have the same idea of where to look, or they can be placed anywhere, really.  The best way to conceal them is to place them behind something that's generally immovable, such as a book case or a faux panel designed to look like the wall.  These safes are great for general use, but usually they're pretty narrow to fit inside the wall cavity.

 

Floor Safes – Like wall safes, these are designed to be hidden from view.  Usually they are cemented right into your foundation or floor, many keep them in the basement (just be sure it's water proof and sealed!).  They are pretty narrow to fit between floor joists, but nonetheless are very difficult to remove in case of burglary.  Typically they are placed underneath a throw rug or sofa, and some can be hidden with fancy tile or wood work.

 

Free-Standing Safe – These home safes are more traditional: usually a behemoth of security.  They are very affordable, depending on the features, and usually come with a fire rating.  They deter thieves by their sheer weight, so they won't be removed.  These home security safes can come in several varieties, from media safes, file cabinet-style, data safes, and all can be biometric or otherwise.

 

Diversion Safes – These safes usually aren't the way to go if you have items that you need protected from fire.  The only form of protection in these safes are an optical illusion, so that they are often passed by for the more valuable items.  They come in the shape of candles, common food items such as name-brand soups and soda cans, or the classic: as a book on a bookshelf with a hollowed-out center.  They serve their purpose well, but be careful what you store in them – they aren't usually fire or water proof, and if a burglar were to grab one, he or she could easily make off with your goods.

 

Laptop Safes – Guess what these safes are designed to protect?  If you said, "Laptop Computers," you'd be the winner!  These are a sort of attaché case for your laptop, and you can use them to store important documents while traveling, or a firearm, or what have you.  They are mobile, and can fit into a briefcase (some of them can), or carried.  They also usually come with a security strap to deter thieves.  Sometimes they are designed to look like anything but a safe, and may come with biometric locks.  College students find these safes to be a good bet in their dorm to store external hard drives and important papers.

 

Gun Locker – In many shapes and sizes, the gun locker is designed to keep your firearms out of the hands of the wrong person: burglar or child, or angry spouse!  The gun lockers today come either as a personal size, or can be fit to be concealed in your car or part of your console, or may be as big as an extra walk-in closet if you own a collection of guns.  If the purpose of having a gun is to protect your home and property from intrusion, then you want to be sure you keep a gun locker with a biometric lock on it.  You don't want to necessarily fumble in the dark for a key or try to remember your combination under duress.  On the other hand, if you swipe your fingerprint and it opens in a swipe or two, that's the ticket.

 

Of course, if you have a collection of guns, or want a safe place to store your collection of hunting rifles and shotguns, then you have a wide selection of home safes to choose from.  Whatever you do, be sure that your gun is stored in a container that's made for the purpose, with gun racks or drawers to keep your gun free from scratches, etc.

 

Suggested Manufacturers

There are many reputable home security safes on the market, but you want to be sure that whether you're buying wall safes or a fireproof file cabinet, that you are buying a safe that's covered by a lifetime warranty as far as fire protection is concerned.  You also want to stick with trusted manufacturers, and here are a few that offer the highest quality in home safes:

 

Sentry®, Winchester®, FireKing®, Schwab®, AMSEC®, Fort Knox®, Honeywell® - these aren't the only makers of quality home security safes, but you can bet their wall safes, gun safes, and other home safes are top of the line.

 

**One final tip on buying the right safe: Never confuse a "manufacturer's fire rating" with a "UL" or "Underwriter's Laboratory" fire rating.  This is a misnomer – but your insurance agent will independently verify that statement.  Be sure you are buying a home safe that has a stamped UL fire rating before purchase.

About the Author

Devon Knight is the author of the http://www.bulletproofshield.com/safes
blog and provides in depth details on choosing the
best <a href="http://www.bulletproofshield.com/safes">home safes</a> and <a href="http://www.bulletproofshield.com/safes">wall safes</a>
check out the blog for reviews and money saving coupons.

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