A Floor Safe – Hidden and Secure.
A floor safe can be a very affordable means of securing valuables
for the average homeowner. These in-the-floor hiding holes, when
properly installed, offer superb burglary protection.
Will hiding a safe in the floor make it burglar proof?
No, nothing can claim to be burglar proof.
Well perhaps Fort Knox and the Bank of England can make that claim,
but for everything else there will be a top professional burglar that
will devise a way to break into it.
A safe with a good UL rating properly installed in your floor,
encased in concrete, will beat Mr. Average Burglar or even Mr. Above
Average Burglar in most cases.
For one thing, to get the safe out and carry it off so as to work on opening it, will entail spending far too much time and making far too much noise.
In practical terms the housebreaker will have to work on your
little vault where it is. And that too is going to involve work, noise
and time.
A thief likes none of those things.
Another advantage of a floor vault is that it can be easily hidden, more easily hidden than a large freestanding safe anyway.
Conventional wisdom says just throw a rug over the safe. Yes, but
any housebreaker that suspects that you have a floor safe is going to
take a peep under any rugs.
How about a heavy piece of furniture over your little secret? It
will mean that you will have to shift the piece of furniture every time
you need to get to your safe, but that inconvenience may be a small
price to pay.
Installing an in-floor safe
Installing an under the floor vault and encasing it in concrete is perhaps not
the easiest of do-it-yourself projects. If you feel that the job is
best left to a professional then there is no shame at all in that.
The cost of the job will depend on exactly where and how you want
your safe installed, the amount of concrete and other material used and
naturally, the time it takes to complete the task.
Pay a little more for a trusted builder, it is worth it, after all this is an investment in the security of items that you value.
A trusted tradesman that you have used in the past is more likely
to keep quite about the location of the safe that he has
installed for you.
A cheap-jack that you have had no former dealings
with could possibly mention your safe to a friend, who talks to a
friend, who in turn talks to someone in a bar who happens to be your
local unfriendly burglar.
Of course you don’t need reminding that it is not usually
practical to install a safe in an upper floor. It would have to be a
very shallow vault that you could install in an upstairs bedroom floor.
Should you decide to install your floor safe yourself, then take a
little time to study the manufacturers instructions. Make sure you know
exactly what you need to do and the tools and materials that you will
need.
Installation details will differ from safe to safe, but the
following will give a general plan for installing an underfloor safe.
Be familiar with the floor plan of your home. Know where support
beams are located as well as electric cables, telephone wires and
plumbing.
Before attempting to install your safe, familiarize
yourself with its workings and test locking and unlocking several times.
If your vault has a lift off door you will probably have to
remove it before installation. Fit a dust cover over the opening.
Mark out the outline of your safe allowing and extra three to four
inches all round.
Use a jackhammer, or an awful lot of muscle and sweat,
to break up any existing concrete. The hole will need to be three to six inches deeper than the external depth of your underfloor safe.
It is recommended to wrap your safe with with heavy quality
waterproof sheeting before installation to combat the effects of
moisture.
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Mix up a volume of concrete and pour in enough to lay a base as Position your underfloor safe in Make sure that you have the |
Fire resistant underfloor safe.
Just like any kind of safe, house floor safes are available that
protect your valuables from theft, from fire or from both of these
things. Just because a particular safe offers good burglar resistance
does not automatically mean that it offers good protection from fire.
The temperatures generated by a house fire are awesome and those
temperatures are reached rapidly too.
Keep in mind that it is not only
the flames that you have to worry about but also the heat. If you
are storing important documents, letters and other papers of
sentimental value, or indeed good old-fashioned combustible bank notes
remember that above a certain temperature they will ignite.
A safe encased in concrete at ground level (heat rises) may give a
little extra protection against fire, but if fire resistance is
important to you then purchase a floor safe that is classified as Fire Resistant as well as burglar resistant.
Water, water everywhere.
Water has a habit of finding its way through the smallest of cracks and gaps. Many under the floor vaults are described as being watertight or having a water-resistant cover, and indeed many will have been designed to keep out water.
But . . . are they really one hundred percent watertight in all circumstances?
You will most likely install your safe
so that it is below ground level, quite possibly in your basement. What
if a pipe bursts? A burst pipe means a lot of water, is your watertight
safe going to be so absolutely watertight then?
What if you suffer a fire? Hey, good luck the fire station is
nearby and the fire crew is busy putting out the fire with . . . water.
Have you ever seen how much water it takes to put out a house
fire? Gallons and gallons of the stuff. And there is a good chance that
the intense heat of the fire will damage any water seal around the
safe’s door.
If you are keeping something, a document or two perhaps, in your
house safe that absolutely has to be protected from water why not
enclose it in a sealed waterproof bag or plastic container.
Belt and braces, but the man with a belt and braces never had his pants fall down.
If you have difficulty in bending then you may not think that a
floor safe is the greatest thing since sliced whole-wheat bread, unless
you can access your safe from a low sitting position perhaps.
A big advantage with floor encased safes over Wall Safes is the range of sizes available.
There is not the restriction of depth that you have with
wall safes.
Sizes start at about a rather small 8x8x6 inches and go all
the way up to 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep, which should be large enough
for all of your documents and trinkets.
You can have one that is round; you can have one that is square.
You can have doors that are lids that simply lift off, when unlocked of
course, to conventional hinged doors. You can have conventional key locking, combination locking, electronic locking or a mix of types.
Construction can be of various thickness’ of steel to
polyethylene, yes that’s right polyethylene, for the body of the safe
which would be encased in concrete, the top and door is made of steel.
In-floor safes are available in a wide range of prices. Starting
at the very cheap, which will get you nothing more than an under the
floor cash box, to the quite pricey for a state of the art under the
floor vault.
Generally though you get a good degree of security for a
very reasonable price with a floor safe.
Home Security Safes
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Floor Safe.
Keep Your Guns Safe.
Gun safes are essential for keeping your guns secure and out of the
hands of the wrong people. If you own a firearm it is your
responsibility to keep it secured.