Safe Selection Helper
Answer these questions to identify the safe best suited to your needs.
How valuable are the contents you will be storing?
This is a core question. If the valuables you’re protecting are irreplaceable or of significant sentimental or monetary value, do you really want to be entrusting them to a safe that’s rated to provide five minutes of protection?
The majority of top-selling safes today can be pried open in just over five minutes by a semi-skilled criminal armed with no more than a large screwdriver.
Do not take chances with important valuables by storing them in these containers.
For more info on the industry-recognized safe ratings, Click here
Will you be buying a safe to store jewelry or watches?
The Estate Series and Gem Jewelry Safes include elegant, configurable jewelry chest drawers to easily access and organize jewelry. These luxury safes can also include watch winders for automatic timepieces, or the true watch afficianado may select one of our Chronos or Man Safe luxury watch safes.
How often will you be accessing the contents of your safe?
This question is a very important one, as a safe that takes too long to open or is located too far away rarely gets used. If you’re buying a safe to store items that you use daily or weekly, then freestanding safes are a better fit for you. They can be placed right where you’re sure to actually use them. A freestanding safe with an electronic lock or biometric entry offers far faster entry than the traditional dial lock.
The features of the Estate Series or Gem Jewelry Safes set these safe types far ahead of the pack, as they are the easiest and quickest safes to use on a daily basis.
How many items do you plan to store?
Often, a client will purchase a small safe only to later discover that they use it far more than anticipated, and need to upgrade to a larger safe that can accommodate more items. The reverse also happens: Clients purchase an Estate model with big plans for all the items they intend to store in it, but find they don’t use it much because the safe is kept in a location that’s too far away to be routinely accessible.
Space and budget permitting, an ideal setup many clients settle into is a large double-door Estate Fire Safe or an HD Fire Safe in a somewhat out of the way location, downstairs or in the garage where less-used items are securely kept. An additional small to mid-sized Luxury Jewelry Safe is then kept in the bedroom area for convenient daily access to commonly used items like jewelry, purses, wallets, watches and other personal belongings.
Will you be storing photos, papers, or paper money?
If so, a high-quality fire-shielded safe will keep these important documents and priceless photos from reaching flash point in the event of a devastating home fire. Without fire protection, the steel walls of a safe heat rapidly during a fire, cooking the contents within minutes.
All Brown Safe types can be upgraded to include fire protection.
To learn more about buying a safe with proper fire protection, click here.
Who is the safe intended to keep out?
While most of the time safes are purchased to thwart determined home burglars, sometimes you simply need a safe to keep out inquisitive kids, prying guests, or probing staff members. If the contents are not overly precious to you, protection is less of an issue than convenience.
Smaller base model HD safes are a great fit for this application, as these small safes can often be installed in easily accessed locations and still offer outstanding burglary and fire protection.
Do you want fire protection?
Kind of like asking someone if they’d like a ding resistant car. The obvious answer will always be yes, this type of extra protection is always good. In the safe world however, fire protection comes with a few more complications that one must be willing to accept for this added level of protection. For Brown Safes, the costs of fire protection are easy to summarize…additional cost, added weight, increased size. If you choose to accept these increases, then fire protection brings superior benefits, including greatly increased burglary protection and of course protection from a devastating home fire. We can add fire protection to all our safe types and vault doors.
Fire protection from other safe companies, however, generally results in seriously compromising trade-offs. While at Brown Safe, we add fire protection by taking an existing burglary-rated safe and cladding it with a 2-inch shell of dense, highly fire-resistant amalgamate. The vast majority of other safe companies, opting to save on weight and material costs, often just layer drywall panels between one or two layers of sheet metal. The resulting safe is about 1/3 the weight, with material savings to match. Unfortunately for the buyer, these fire safes provide virtually no protection against burglary attacks and are also an inferior fire safe design. In our opinion this method of fire protection is completely unacceptable. Be warned.
Click here for additional information on inferior and superior fire protection methods.
Does your home have a fire sprinkler system?
If yes, then fire protection is less of a concern for you. This keeps the non-fire-shielded burglary safes in the running. These safes are lighter than fire safes, so they can be better suited for certain upstairs locations where safe weight may present an issue.
If you are buying a safe intended for an upstairs installation , and the safe is heavier than 1,600 lbs (quality safes 60 inches or taller commonly achieve this mass), it’s always good to have a trusted installer perform a site survey prior to purchase.
Do you have an alarm and/or home automation system?
While you should never depend solely on an alarm to ward off all evildoers intent on seizing your treasures, alarm systems can allow you to breathe a bit more easily as they statistically aid response time from the police department. All safes can be compromised, given enough time, tools, and expertise…but alarms, both silent and audible, tend to reduce the time a criminal has to locate a safe and then attempt entry. Since wall safes are especially vulnerable to quick snatch attacks, these safe types are not the best choice if it’s likely the criminal will have time to snoop around for a while.
Estate Safes and Luxury Jewelry Safes are ideal for homes with alarms and/or home automation systems, as these safe types have a variety of features that allow the safe to directly interface with alarm and home automation systems to enhance the home’s overall security level.
What is the security or police response time in your area?
Safes create a time barrier between criminals and your belongings. If you live in an area with fast response times, lighter-protection safes are still a potential option. If you’re in a more isolated location or in an area that may take more time for authorities to arrive, you will want to go with the higher protection ratings.
Will the safe be installed upstairs?
In most cases, it’s a good idea to place your safe in a location you’re likely to use on a daily basis. Closets and bedrooms tend to work well. However, these locations are often upstairs. some homes don’t have a strong enough floor foundation to handle the weight of a very large fire-clad Estate Safe and may require additional support. However, the majority of homes can support the weight of small to mid-size fire-clad safes.
If considering a large fire-clad safe, we can arrange for a qualified safe installer to come inspect the location first to determine structural feasibility along with ironing out any difficulties associated with installation. We have a network of qualified installers all over the world and are glad to introduce you to a trustworthy one in your area.
Do you intend to insure any contents within the safe?
Insurance companies will not reduce their rates for an insured item stored within a safe unless that safe meets certain minimum standards of protection. The minimum safe requirement for the vast majority of insurance companies is a ½” thick solid steel door with ¼” thick solid steel body. All Brown safes meet this minimum protection requirement. We also offer further protection levels ratings that can result in additional insurance savings.
Owning a high-security safe will rapidly pay for itself if the valued contents carry insurance.
As for the competition, even the highest-rated safes from virtually all top-selling safe builders fail to meet these minimum insurance company requirements. If you have insured items or are considering insurance, it pays in more ways than one to research and understand the protection level rating for all your safe options prior to purchase.
