How to Choose the Best Safe Box for Home
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Some people believe that home safes are not the ideal choices when it comes to placing precious jewelry. They argue that precious jewelry and rare coins should be placed in a bank safe-deposit box. But, in reality, nowadays, the best safe boxes are available for home use. They can help with safeguarding not just tax records, birth certificates and similar documents, but even ornaments and rare collections. Also, as compared to the bank safety deposit, the best safe box for home use will help the user save a lot of money as well.
It is quite hard to select a safe box for home as different choices are available these days. When it comes to buying a safe box, you should remember one thing. It is something that you will buy as a one-time investment as you cannot change is frequently. Even, it is not easy to resell a safe box.
Nowadays, you can easily sell an old phone and a computer, but how about selling a heavy, secured and bolted safe? It is quite hard, isn’t it? So, your shopping for a safe should not turn out to be the wrong decision. So, it is better to consider the points to be considered in your shopping for a safe box for home:
Naturally, independent ratings for burglary resistance are not common when it comes to safe boxes for homes. But, you can check whether the box that you plan to buy is UL-Certified. To identify the burglary-resistance ratings, UL testers evaluate the safes with torches, tools, and even explosives. The one with TL-15, for instance, will be in a position to withstand an attack done using common tools at least for 15 minutes. So, to know whether the box is burglary resistance, look at the UL-rating of the product.
Before you shop for any safe box for home, you should check the volume of items that can get into the safe. Here, you should remember that there should be some additional space to store any future stuff that adds to the list of your precious documents or items. When you know this, you can determine how large the safe should be bought. You might think about buying a smaller safe. This size will help when it comes to concealing. The size of a standard home safe will be around 8 inches height, 10 inches wide, and deep.
In general, safe boxes come with different locking mechanisms. Understanding the pros and cons of these locking systems will help you decide, which locking system you should choose for the best safe box for your home use:
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In addition to the above-mentioned options, even safes with biometric locks are available these days. So, you can choose one after evaluating the pros and cons of each.
When they buy a safe box for home, most property owners decide that it should be placed in the master bedroom. However, it is a common area, where people tend to place the safe. So, intruders trying to break-in tend to check the master bedroom in the first instance to find any valuable stuff to rob when you are not in the home. So, it is better to choose some other room like the basement. Even, this place will help from the fire-protection point of view.
However, the thing to remember here is that if your home is located in a flood-prone area, the basement can be a risky place unless and until the safe box has a water-proof mechanism. So, where have you planned to place the safe box is an essential consideration in your shopping.
Some people wish that the best safe box for home should be portable. The reason is that they take frequent trips in cabs and so, they wish to carry it wherever they go. On the other hand, some people think that carrying it along is risky. Also, they feel that it would be rather safe to permanently install the safe at home. If you want it to be permanent, you can look for a safe box that can be bolted to the floor. The decision should be based on your preference.
Some people think that a fire-proof safe can protect against everything. This is just a misconception. If you are planning to place media and data like tapes, computer discs, CDs, and DVDs, they are sensitive to moisture and humidity along with heat.
A fire-proof safe cannot protect your belongings against these things. On the other hand, a fire-proof safe will help with safeguarding your documents and will keep the internal temperature less than 350 degrees. But, this method of protection can create steam inside the safe. When you place your CDs and DVDs in such an environment, they will be badly damaged. So, you should decide the best safe box based on what you have planned to store within.
If you have planned to place the safe box in the basement, it would be better to check whether the safe box comes with interior illumination. The reason is that there will be an absence of natural illumination in the basement. Of course, you will have a light but you will get better visibility of the content within if the safe box for home has interior lighting.
If you have a licensed gun at home and are planning to place it in the safe, you should carefully go through the door construction of the safe. The best safe box for storing guns will have at least half-an-inch or even thicker steel. It is better to check whether the gun safe has UL TL-15, RSC and UL TL-30 ratings. For a gun safe, it is better to check whether the safe has at least an hour of fire rating. The reason is that less-than one-hour fire rating safes can rarely survive a home fire.
After evaluating the points discussed above, we recommend you to buy a safe box with the following qualities:
Wish you get the best safe for home to safeguard your crucial documents and other stuff!
This post was last modified on January 21, 2021 12:51 am