Protection is Everything
Like so many other products on the market today, the majority of safes are in fact cheap Chinese knockoffs of true safes. Most criminals have come to know this sad truth,
even sadder is the truth that placing you’re precious valuables inside one of these pretend safes is actually making the criminals job significantly easier as you’ve nicely organized all your valuables in one convenient location for them. Don’t be fooled by nice paint finishes and smooth talking salesman, ask specifically where the safe was made and what the thickness of the solid steel portion of the safe is for both door and walls. If they can’t or won’t tell you, find another safe. You really need to have a minimum of a ½” thick solid steel door and a ¼” thick solid steel body to provide protection from standard attacks against the safe from simple crowbars, to hammers, to other common tools. For those of you who feel this information doesn’t apply to you because the safe you’ve selected bears the ultimate mark of protection, the acclaimed U.L. RSC sticker, beware. A RSC or Residential Security Container rating simply means the safe needs to keep out an unskilled burglar armed with a hammer and small crowbar for a grand total of 5 minutes. While an RSC rated safe is on the high side of protection compared to a lot of the lesser safes being produced, it will only buy you just over 5 minutes against a marginally equipped burglar, perhaps 2 to 3 minutes against a pro.
Make it Convenient
So now that you’ve selected a quality safe with a sufficient protection level, it’s time to stick it in some dark hidden passage underneath your stairwell where no thief will ever know to look for it…and where you’ll never think to put anything in it. Sure you’ve seen plenty of movies where the safe is cleverly concealed behind a hidden wall or painting. Sure you’ve thought to yourself, hey, that’s a clever place for my safe! Sorry to once again thwart these Hollywood visions of security, but the best place to hide a safe, is right where you’ll use it most, usually in an easily visible location in your bedroom or closet. Why such a blatantly obvious location you may ask, because it’s a very tough safe and tough safes don’t really concern themselves with petty attempts at theft. If anything, having a criminal whack and pry away their precious thieving time on a safe they have no chance of actually gaining entry, keeps them from plundering through the rest of your home. A pro will find the safe, even a hidden one, and an amateur thief will blow all his time attempting to get into a safe because he’s grown accustom to safes being an easy target. But the safe is too ugly to be seen you say. Modern safes have custom colors and hardware finishes so they can be made to blend with to their surroundings.
Features are Your Friend
A safes just a big metal box that you stick your ‘stuff’ in right? This is the old way of thinking about safes. If your only valuables are a bar of gold, treasure map, and deed to your old mans abandoned mansion. Then perhaps a big box under the stairs is the right way to go. As for the rest of us… nowadays you can have a safe with just about any feature you can dream up, and for good reason. Many of your most valued items are in fact the ones you handle and use each day. Jewelry, wallets, car keys, purses, watches, smart phones, laptops. All these belong in a safe, nicely organized and easily accessible. We receive calls almost daily from clients who were convinced they didn’t really need to worry about features that make safes more usable, until a recent burglary along with the days of headache that followed showed them the light. The most helpful features in safes are also the most common in quality safes. Electronic push button lock for easy entry, jewelry safe drawers for organizing, and interior lights to help illuminate the safes contents. Bottom line is quality safes stay with your family for generations to come, so make sure it has features that make using it on a daily bases an enjoyable experience.
Tired of searching through countless crappy safes in search of the perfect deal. When it comes to safes, you get what you pay for. Our safes aren’t the cheapest, but they are the best. Take a look at our safes and you won’t go back.
