Home Wall Safes

Pictures, paintings, photographs, tapestries, mirrors, calendars and the like can be hung over home wall safes to hide their presence. This can be seen in countless old black and white movies, the painting covering up the wall safe is almost always a copy of The Laughing Cavalier. You would think that burglars would have cottoned on to this ruse by now, perhaps they have, be wise, choose a different painting.

To be serious, it isn’t going to take a burglar long to discover a safe hidden under a painting. If he thinks that your home is the kind that has wall safes he is going to take a peek behind anything hanging on your walls, even that picture of your mother-in-law.

It will be best to be a little inventive in order to beat the burglar. You could place a heavy piece of furniture in front of your hiding hole; this may throw the housebreaker of the scent.

Other ways of hiding home wall safes include slide out wall panels and setting the coffer behind a stone fireplace, a couple of the stones lifting out to reveal the safe.

As well as discovering your place of concealment, the burglar will need the necessary safe-breaking skills. While it is true that even quality home wall safes do not take the skill or effort needed to crack a bank vault, the casual housebreaker is unlikely to attempt it.

The typical wall mounted safe is bolted to the inside of your wall from inside the safe, this means that Mr. Burglar cannot get to the bolts when the door is shut and locked.

Home wall safes are available with a variety of locks, key operated locks, combination locks, biometric locks, some with a mix of locking devices to vex the thief.

The average wall in the average home is not very thick, unless your home is somewhere like the Tower of London. Therefore home wall safes tend not to be too deep and so are not suitable for bulky items, they accommodate documents and cash very well though and also jewelry, unless your jewelry is the Crown Jewels in which case you probably do live in the Tower of London.

The more solid the wall that your safe is installed into the better. Most house walls however, are simple stud walls and it is not beyond a determined burglar to cut his way around the safe and remove it from the wall. He can then scuttle back to whatever rock he crawled from under and work on opening the safe there. To cut, or chop, a safe out of a wall would take time though; a burglar wants to be quick. It would also involve making noise, thieves don’t like that it attracts attention.

Most manufacturers state that the average do-it-yourself enthusiast can easily install their home wall safes and most supply good clear instructions.

You don’t have to be millimeter perfect when measuring out and cutting the hole, for example, because the safe will have a flange around the edge that will mask a little slack.

Many of us though can’t successfully nail two pieces of wood together and if this includes you, you can get your trusted builder to install your safe for you. Your builder may also be able to suggest ways to make your home safe more secure, by imbedding in concrete for example.

Home wall safes can do more than protect your valuables from theft, some are also rated as fire resistant. Protection from fire as well as theft can be a consideration when it comes to important documents such as deeds, contacts, wills, receipts, stamp collections, and not forgetting cash – charred bills don’t spend too well.

Home wall safes, or any kind of home safe, should be only a part of your home security measures. Burglars, if they have any sense at all, will want to get in to and then out of, a property as quickly as possible. The more barriers, by the way of security measures, which you put in the way of a burglar the more chance he has of being caught and the less chance he has of stealing your valuables.

Your home wall safe is the last barrier between the burglar and the valuables that you have secured inside.

If he has spent a time avoiding or overcoming your other security measures (alarms, locks, cameras,) is he then going to risk more time attempting to crack your wall safe when he discovers that that is where you have hidden your goodies?

Like any other security measure, home wall safes are not a guarantee that the valuables you keep at home will not get stolen. They do however, offer good protection and are a far better option than keeping your cash, jewelry, important papers and the like unprotected in a draw or worse, just laying around the place.

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