Home Safes Explained

Why use a home safe?

Well things have changed a lot in modern society, more and more of us have a lot more valuables or items of sentimental value. We also need to protect important documents too in this day and age. Identity theft is a fast growing crime and a safe can prevent this.

What type of safe do i need?

A commonly asked question by our customers and a very relevant one too. Before purchasing any type of safe you need to write down a list of what you want to protect and also what from. By this we mean do you just want to stop a thief from taking your valuables? Do you need the safe to protect documents against fire? Do you need to protect valuable data in the form of computer media from theft and fire? Have you been asked to get one by your insurance company?

Once you know what you require of the safe its time to look at the options available.
If its an insurance requirement they will normally specify an amount it should cover. What this means is that safe has a "cash rating" or "jewelery rating" of X amount. As a general rule the jewelery rating is normally ten times more than the cash rating. For example a safe with a cash rating of £1000 has a jewelery rating of £10000

Now you know the cash rating they require you can start to look at the next options available. Firstly how big does it need to be? what are you going to put in it? ie: a laptop or just small items like cash, passports etc. Once you know how big it needs to be you need to work out a suitable place for it to be fitted. Ideally the safe should be bolted down to the floor and or to a wall for maximum security. If space is limited there is the option of having a floor or wall safe. A floor safe can offer excellent security but isn't suitable for many home uses and is inconvenient to retrieve items from. A wall safe is easy to use and can be hidden behind a picture etc but generally these safes don't have very high cash ratings.

Another option you have when choosing a safe is the type of locking options available. You may have key operated, digital electronic keypad, combination or a mix of these. Key operated safes are usually quite reliable and you only have to keep the key safe. These types of locks can go on for years without any problems and are a cost effective choice. Digital locks offer convenience and can also allow the user to change the code if need be. The downsides are you need to change the batteries every so often and also electronics don't always offer the same longterm reliability that a key operated safe can. The manufacturers are bringing out better products all the time to combat this downfall and there are some excellent digital locks on the market now. Unfortunately digital locking options can be more expensive over a key operated option. Combination locks are popular in America but not so common in the UK on home safes.Lots of commercial safes are fitted with them and they offer good levels of protection. The code can be changed by the home user but its not always an easy procedure to tackle first time.

Lets not forget about the cheap safes you see everywhere now with digital keypads and also overide keys. Ok they are a safe but they offer a very limited amount of security (the reasons why are another article in itself). We get a lot of calls to these types of safes where the keypad has failed or the keys are lost and generally the charge to open it is more than what the safe cost to buy, so choose carefully.

If you want a safe for fire or data protection you need to choose wisely and consult your local safe supplier for more in depth information.

Safes can be expensive items to initially buy but look at them as a long term purchase. A good quality safe will give you many many years of trouble free security which can be taken from property to property. The peace of mind provided by having one is a small price to pay.