Spec me a safe

agnes

agnes

agnes

Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2006
Posts
16,864
Location
Amsterdam, NL
Looking for a small to mid sized safe. I've no idea about them, we just want something fire proof and secure for storing documents of value and rarity.

Doesn't need to be insanely secure, just more focused on preservation in the event of an accident.
 
Bouton Aide said:
What type of accident?
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Water damage, fire, alien invasion. You know, that kind of stuff.

To add a bit of context, I inherited some very old family heirloom books and at the moment, they are in a less than ideal storage. Some old photos of family members. Along side the usual important docs (passport, wedding and birt certificates) and maybe a little kitty cash.

As mentioned, I don't need something uncrackable, just something that will keep contents safe from external conditions yet still have a lock of some form.
 
Not sure I'd trust any of those amazon ones with actual valuables tbh, the selection I looked at all appear to be rebranded generic Chinese ones which can be picked in 30 seconds using a paper clip, have no door seals to protect from water ingress, and offer the fire resistance of an Easter egg (OK, maybe not quite that bad, but they are 2-3mm steel with no insulation of any kind, sure the flames might not get in, but it's almost certainly still going to get hot enough in there to badly damage/destroy the contents!).
 
We inherited this thing when we moved in

l7aweZX.jpeg


In researching around and talking to some safe maintenance engineers it struck me that decent solutions seem to have two things in common:
  • Quality safes you'd trust tend to come with a security rating for how much you should keep in them. It seems an absence of such a rating is something you want to avoid if you're serious about protection
  • Especially true for smaller safes, think very carefully about where it is sited in your property and how it is physically secured. That thing above is bolted down into a three inch thick concrete plinth especially created for the purpose (although I think this was also to raise it off the floor as it isn't watertight). Don't skip on anchoring your safe with sub-standard fittings. You don't need to go to the extremes my previous home owners did but good bolts into a solid wall should be a minimum.
 
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Probably nothing that's featured on the lockpicking lawyer's channel :) It's an entertaining channel about locks and lockpicking, but many of the most popular videos are about highly insecure locks that he defeats in seconds, especially if he can do it without specialised tools. He opened a "safe" with a fork on one video and people jokingly challenged him to open a "safe" with a spoon. He succeeded in doing that. Some "safes" don't deserve the name as the contents are very far from safe.

More seriously, my quick looking around indicates that BS/EN 1047 is the standard in the UK and in the EU for safes. Mainly in terms of heat resistance, though I think there's some assessment of security from unauthorised access too. Water resistance is a different thing. Maybe you'd be better off sealing the contents from water before putting them in the safe, since they'd be very vulnerable to water damage.

Also, as BigT mentioned above, for security from theft you also need to ensure that it's impractical for a thief to take the safe away. If they can remove the safe and take it to somewhere they can spend some time to try opening it, they might well do so.
 
Angilion said:
Probably nothing that's featured on the lockpicking lawyer's channel :) It's an entertaining channel about locks and lockpicking, but many of the most popular videos are about highly insecure locks that he defeats in seconds, especially if he can do it without specialised tools. He opened a "safe" with a fork on one video and people jokingly challenged him to open a "safe" with a spoon. He succeeded in doing that. Some "safes" don't deserve the name as the contents are very far from safe.

More seriously, my quick looking around indicates that BS/EN 1047 is the standard in the UK and in the EU for safes. Mainly in terms of heat resistance, though I think there's some assessment of security from unauthorised access too. Water resistance is a different thing. Maybe you'd be better off sealing the contents from water before putting them in the safe, since they'd be very vulnerable to water damage.

Also, as BigT mentioned above, for security from theft you also need to ensure that it's impractical for a thief to take the safe away. If they can remove the safe and take it to somewhere they can spend some time to try opening it, they might well do so.
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Was thinking of the lockpicking lawyer also.

brilliant :cry:

 
Probably bleeding obvious but make sure you have good quality digital copies of the photos. If the books are especially old you may need to store them in a more specialist way?
 
Get a fireproof one that bolts between the joints in your loft. Unless your house is turned over by professional thieves who know you’ve got stuff worth nicking, they won’t go into a loft as they’d be trapped if you returned home unexpectedly.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
Get a fireproof one that bolts between the joints in your loft. Unless your house is turned over by professional thieves who know you’ve got stuff worth nicking, they won’t go into a loft as they’d be trapped if you returned home unexpectedly.
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Safes in lofts aren’t a good idea. Moisture and damp get in there potentially ruining your valuables
 
Phoenix safes have a good reputation. I've bought them in the past for tape storage before cloud backup was a thing.
 
We have a safety box in a bank. It's hard to get them these days though. We tried to get another and they said they don't offer the service anymore so no idea what the score is the with current one other than it's still there.
 
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