How to Choose the Right Safe for Your Home

Security needs in the home are very straightforward in terms of safeguarding your loved ones and protecting the house and its contents. In this sense you invest in good door locks, security alarms and maybe security cameras also. But when it comes down to individual items, you need a safe and the type of safe you need requires very careful consideration. how to choose the right safe for your home

A safe can be classed as a secondary form of security, because a thief or intruder would need to bypass your primary source of security first, ie. a door lock and alarm system, to be able to access the safe. But this doesn’t mean you should pay any less attention to choosing the right safe for your needs. There are a number of factors which can influence what type of safe you opt for, and these can include:

Budget
The financial value of your individual items
The sentimental value of your individual items
Insurance requirements
The size and layout of your home

We will look at all these factors and how they dictate what type of safe you might need and how you should come to a decision.

Considerations when choosing a safe for your home

Fire safe, security safe or both? – If you have items of sentimental value, such as old photos or family heirlooms, these are not necessarily going to be of interest to an opportunist thief. Likewise, legal documents such as a copy of a will or property deeds, or passports are very important to you, but not to anyone else. So in this case your security needs are to protect these items from being lost or destroyed in a fire, rather than to protect them from theft. Items such as watches, jewellery or cash, however, have clear financial value, so do need protecting from theft. A fire safe is different to a standard security safe in that it is constructed to withstand fire and is tested to certain standards. This enables a manufacturer to give a safe a specific fire rating, ie. how long a safe can withstand fire. You can then select a suitable safe based on this information. Standard security safes are constructed differently and are more about robustness, strength and a good locking system. However, you may wish to combine security and fire protection needs because you have a mixture of items you wish to store together. So in this case you will need a safe which offers fire protection but is also able to keep items of financial value safe.
Know your contents – Following on from the above, it is important to establish what kind of items you want to keep safe before looking at what type of safe you need. Documents and family heirlooms can be quite large and bulky, while jewellery can be extremely valuable but also extremely small. So size matters and can make a considerable cost saving on the type of safe you need, but you should also bear in mind your changing and evolving needs. Are you likely to add to the items you store in the safe over time? It is always advisable to opt for a safe that is slightly bigger than the items you originally have, this future-proofs your home security needs.
Insurance – Needless to say, insurance companies want you to do everything you can to keep your valuable items safe, so it is common for them to stipulate what level of security you need in the home, and that also relates to safes. So you should always check with your insurance company if they have minimum security ratings for a safe, based on the contents listed under your insurance policy. If you ignore this guidance and later have items stolen, it is possible you have contravened your policy and may not be insured.
Where are you storing the safe? – Some people have a small, mobile and lockable safe that is stored in a desk drawer, very much like a petty cash box, but other people need a much bigger safe and want to hide the safe away for added security and so as not to draw attention to it, or purely for aesthetic reasons. So safes can be located in a wall recess and behind artwork or a mirror, or they can be stored in a cavity under the floor. Safes can also be built integrally inside wardrobes. Another solution is to bolt a safe to the floor or to the wall, these are more common in the workplace, but can be found in homes also. In this case a safe will come with pre-drilled bolt holes you can use to secure the safe to a floor or wall, meaning even if an intruder gains access to your home, they can’t just pick up the safe and leave with it. They need to bypass the locking mechanism there and then. In order to bolt a safe to the floor or wall you need to ensure you have enough space, and also that the surfaces being secured to are strong and safe. The location of your safe is also influenced by how often you will need to access it, so if you need frequent everyday access to the safe, you don’t want to store it under the carpet and have to remove lots of items every time in order to access it.
Locking mechanism – This is a relatively minor consideration when considering all these other factors, but the type of mechanism needs to suit the people using it in terms of practicality. Common types of locking mechanism are keys, dials, codes and PIN numbers, and modern smart locks also use biometric features, such as eye, face or thumb print recognition, which of course are very hard to bypass.

Choose the right type of safe with help from MB Direct

At MB Direct we can help you choose the right safe by discussing your needs, budgets and home layout. We can supply wall safes, portable safes and fire safes, as well as safes specifically for under the floor. Check our range of safes and make sure you find the right safe to suit your needs.