Best House Safes: What to Look For?
Perhaps you have decided that rather than keep your important documents in a safety deposit box at your local financial institution, you’d rather keep them at home so you can access them immediately if an emergency should ever occur.
However, where do you keep these important papers like your tax documents and passports? They’re far too valuable to leave in a drawer, and you want to protect them from disasters such as fire and floods. So what do you do?
The answer is to invest in a house safe. While there are plenty of house safes on the market, there are a lot that are of inferior quality and won’t do much to protect your papers from thieves or natural disasters. Here are a few things you want to look for when you’re buying a house safe.
Point to Check When You Buy New Safe
Check the fire resistance rating. Chances are your documents are more likely to be destroyed in a fire than they are to be robbed. If you’re planning on only storing paper documents in the safe, get a safe that will not get hotter than 3500 F on the inside during a 30 minute house fire.
If you’re going to store slides or video, you’ll need a safe that doesn’t get hotter than 1500 F on the inside, and if you’re going to be storing DVD’s or computer storage devices, you’ll need a safe that stays even cooler on the inside, with 1250 F being the maximum temperature. The cooler the safe, the higher the price in general terms.
When it comes to burglar protection, check the TL rating. A safe with a rating of TL-15 can withstand a sustained attack with common drilling tools for at least 15 minutes.
Finally
the best house safes will also be water resistant to protect your documents during a flood situation. Some safe manufacturers will submit their products to water tests, and the results should be written on the packaging the safe comes in.
