Not too long ago, I received a call from a woman who said she needed her safe opened. As we spoke, she  mentioned that she had forgotten the combination to the safe. I told her I’d be very happy to help her in any way possible, gave her a tentative quote, and scheduled her for an appointment later that afternoon.

When I arrived at her home, I accompanied her to the bedroom closet where the safe has been installed. I almost lost a toe when my chin hit the floor, because staring up at me was an in-the-floor safe with its combination dial and handle completely destroyed. She had forgotten to mention that little detail. At that point I thought it would be a good idea to amend the quote immediately in order to reflect the additional work which would be required (something to which she apologetically agreed), and I went to work. As it turned out, this nice lady had inadvertently hit the jackpot without knowing it: her life savings and all of her most precious valuables had been protected from theft precisely because she had chosen the wrong safe in which to store them ! But this is merely the exception which proves the rule…

What this woman did not know was that her son (the little stinker) had known exactly what the combination to the safe was, yet he still found himself unable to open it. The simple explanation for his inability to get it open was that this woman had found so many reasons to use the safe that she had packed it to the rafters with stuff. She later admitted to me that she had to stand on the safe in order to lock it on the last time she had used it. And it was only because she had stuffed the safe like a Thanksgiving turkey that the internal bolt structure had bound up, leaving Junior unable to throw the handle. I suppose that’s what led to his decision to wipe the safe’s dial and handle out of existence.

This little episode cost Mom more money than she had planned on spending when she had rolled out of bed that morning, but it was peanuts compared to what she might have lost had her son remembered to stand on the safe when reopening it. Anyhow, all’s well that ends well.

This little story helps illustrate what is a fairly common problem in my line of work– helping people to understand what their security needs are insofar as a safe purchase is concerned. The more timid among prospective safe buyers tend to immediately balk at the price which, to a degree, is understandable. The price of a good safe, however, is miniscule in comparison to the price of walking into your home and finding your bargain-basement safe open, and EMPTY.

Before buying any kind of safe, ask yourself whether the primary function of the safe will be to protect documents only, or personal valuables, or whether it will be used for commercial applications. This will help you narrow things down a little.

If your anticipated use for the safe is for the protection of documents only, a good bet to be for you to consider a simple fire safe. These safes feature fire protection for periods ranging from 30 minutes up to more than two hours. Your choice in fire protective capacity should be based on the importance of the documents to be protected. Paper has a flashpoint of 451°, and fire safes are typically constructed in such a way that the internal temperature of the safe will remain below 350° for the time period for which the safe was rated. Obviously, the more important the paper, the more critical the fire rating.

For the protection of personal valuables, it’s very wise to consider purchasing a burglary-rated safe. My personal preference is for freestanding safes (rather than in-the-floor safes). And I prefer them for several reasons: firstly, because they don’t require that you dig a huge hole somewhere through the slab under the house (an unbelievably messy prospect that carries with it the risk of damage to the slab), and secondly, because if you decide to pick up and move somewhere else, you can take your expensive safe with you (rather than leaving it as a housewarming gift for the lucky new homeowner). My third and final reason for preferring a freestanding safe is that it holds way more stuff (eliminating the need to have your fattest family member lean on it in order to close the door). Always keep in mind that safes, like our homes, tend to accumulate 20% more stuff than they were built to hold, so try to keep this in mind when deciding on the size of the container you’ll be needing.

For those of you intending to purchase a safe for dual purposes (such as documents and personal valuables), you may consider purchasing a safe with a BF rating. These containers offer excellent burglary and fire protection, but they tend to reduce the usable interior of the safe significantly, due to the amount of fire-resistant composite needed in order to protect the safe’s contents from extreme heat.

For commercial applications one may turn to the safes we’ve previously discussed and, in addition, one might also consider under counter safes (which are typically installed under the cash register for till trimming), drop safes (in which deposits may be made through the top, front, or reverse). NOTE: I want you to know that I do not recommend the overnight storage of cash deposits in such safes, however. In such cases, it is my recommendation that one use either a TL-15 or TL- 30 high-security depository safe.

For cassettes, CDs, and diskettes I strongly recommend the use of data safes, as these are specifically engineered to protect sensitive data by keeping the internal temperature of the safe below 150°F.

Although the price of these items may leave you somewhat shell-shocked, it is nothing in comparison to the way you might feel if you had not taken such precautionary measures, only to find your cash, documents, and personal valuables either stolen or destroyed by fire. Try to look at the price of your safe in relation to the insurance deductible you have on your property — and then ask yourself if you would rather pay a pound of flesh to protect your valuables, or pay 5 pounds of flesh for an insurance deductible (a bitter pill to swallow after having lost everything, as I’m sure you’ll agree).

Anyway, I hope that this little newsletter will enable you to make a little bit more sense out of what is admittedly a difficult thing to do these days: protecting your goodies while you’ve still got ‘em. I’ll be writing much more on this commonly- misunderstood topic further on down the road, and I hope you’ll be there to read it. 

Thanks for visiting my site, and have a wonderful day. 

Valerie

copyright 2009, Valerie Tannenbaum. All rights reserved.