It’s worth thinking about having a safe in your home for peace of mind, especially if you’re going on holiday.
We all have documents and valuables that are too precious to leave in a jewellery box or too important to just file in a box file. Leaving aside the obvious need to store your jewellery securely, you might need a safe place for the deeds of your house, or somewhere to keep that irreplaceable DVD of your family growing up.
And with more and more of us working at home, a safe can be a useful place for important business documents.If your company needs to store sensitive data, such as personal details or financial information, you should seriously consider buying a safe.
So which type will suit your needs?
A knowledgeable locksmith will be able to tell you more about the different designs, but in brief, you can opt for:
- A freestanding home safe that is compact and sturdy enough to protect the cash and valuables kept in an average home.
- A data safe, which will protect against fire, smoke and water damage for around 120 minutes on average. Depending on the size, you’ll be able to protect hard drives, digital media and laptops. A handy tip is to make sure you choose a model with an internal shelf and perhaps some drawers for smaller items such as memory sticks. Sometimes these are an optional extra.
- A fire resistant safe is ideal if you have documents such as contracts, deeds, marriage registers, wills and birth certificates that need to be stored safely. Some offer fire protection for papers for up to an hour at temperatures of up to 900°C.
- For extra security, you could consider a wall safe. These are a good choice if you know you won’t need frequent access, as they are often hidden away. As the name suggests they are designed to be embedded into a wall. They can also be fitted with micro switches for connection into alarm circuits.
- Another option you might like to consider is an underfloor safe.
You probably still have a vision in your mind of a burglar listening to the clicks of a combination lock to crack open a safe….
Things have moved on. When you look at the wide range of safes available at a locksmith’s, you may be surprised to find that most are opened with a key these days, or via a digital pad on the door. Yes, you can still get the combination-style, but the very latest are now available with fingerprint recognition systems to open them!
Be aware that good quality safes will comply with a ‘Eurograde’ standard. This means that the higher the grade of safe, the larger the sum of money an insurance company will insure for cash stored within it. Without this, insurers will only insure you for a limited amount of cash kept in the house – usually around £500 maximum. So if you keep a lot of cash in the house, think carefully by reviewing ITCC Locksmiths range of security devices.
