What Kind of Safe Should I Buy?

Choosing a safe that caters for your security needs can be confusing and time consuming. Understanding safes is a good way to figure out what type of safe will benefit you the most.

Safes ultimately work to help store and protect people's assets. They offer high security solutions for homes, commercial environments, offices, schools, banks and many more. Safes help to prevent thefts from occurring as entry to the safe is restricted by their reinforcement.

How to Understand the Contents of Safe?

The key to understanding safes is to ask yourself, what am you planning on putting into my safe? Will you be storing cash, valuables, documents, drugs or digital media? This helps determine what type of safe you require.

If you need to store money, a cash safe will suit this requirement. Storage of gold or silver valuables may be best kept in a jewellery safe. High Security Cabinets will benefit environments where controlled drugs or medicines are stored. Key Cabinets will help to store large volume of keys that need to be regularly used.

Fire Safes will allow protection against fire, this will be either for A4 paper such as documents, or digital media such as CDs and USBs.

Depository options are also available with safes. This will be if you intend to deposit money or documents on a regular basis, for example in a retail environment. Deposit safes can be purchased with various different deposit options such a deposit shoots or rotatory deposits.

What is a Safe Cash and Valuables Rating?

Cash and valuable ratings offer guidance to how much is to be stored into a particular safe. A cash rating determines how much cash can be protected within the safe. If a safe has a cash rating of £2000, you can therefore store up to £2000 of cash in this safe. High cash rating safes will protect larger sums of cash where as small cash ratings protect smaller amounts of cash.

The valuables rating works slightly differently. A valuables rating is how much certain items are worth such as laptops or jewellery. If you have a laptop that is worth £2000 and jewellery that is worth £5000, you must make sure that you have a safe that has a valuables rating of at least £7000.

Where Should I Install my Safe?

The next question should be, where are you planning on having the safe? If it is an office safe, you may require the safe to fit underneath a desk. If you need a safe in a location where there is little room, a under floor safe may be more appropriate.

 A home safe may be best placed in a basement where not a lot of guests will be able to see it. Key safes may be best placed on a wall as they are small items that need to be regularly used.

If you are unsure where you want the safe,  make sure it is placed in a location which is out of site and hard to get to by intruders. Think about where you keep your key or pin for the safe, make sure they're not in close proximity of each other.

What Size Safe Do I Need?

When it comes to sizes, check the external and internal sizes of the safe. The internal size will indicate the size inside the safe so will give clearer indications to how much can fit inside.  Looking at the safes size in depth will also help to show how much can be stored inside. 

Are Safe Certifications Important?

Certifications are good indicators to understanding safes. Certain certifications are awarded to safes based on tests they have undergone.

AiS Approved will especially help your search if you are purchasing a  safe for insurance purposes. Safes certified as AiS approved are more likely to be accepted by insurers.

If you are going through your insurance, the first thing we recommend to do is get in touch with your insurance company. They will recommend a safe which meets their requirements. If they do not give you anything specific, they will give you guidelines to the specification of a safe.

Euro graded safes are safes that have been tested and approved by The European wide Eurograde system. They are tested on their strength and resistance to break in. Euro graded safes will be more beneficial to those wishing to store larger sums of cash. This is because their cash ratings start from £6,000.

JCQ Approved cabinets are popular amongst schools as they can be used to store official exam papers. JCQ approved means that such cabinets meet the safety requirements set by the Joint Council for Qualifications. They act as a membership organisation, representing the eight largest national awarding bodies offering qualifications in the UK.

Fire certificates are awarded to safes that can withstand a substantial amount of fire exposure. There are different types of fire resistant safes, some will protect paper and some will protect digital media from fire exposure.

These types of safes will indicate the duration of protection they have against fire. For example, a Chubbsafes Executive 65 has a 60 minute fire rating against paper. It ultimately means that paper inside the safe can withstand protection for up to 60 minutes in the case of a fire.

This will be the same if the safe is marked with a 60 minute fire rating against digital media. The only difference being it will protect digital media content that is inside the safe.

What Safe Lock Do I Need?

Locks play a large part in understanding safes. Commercial safes may need electronic locks so multiple people can gain access to the safe whereas a domestic safe may require a key lock for sole purpose use. If you require added security, a dual lock adds that extra protection. By knowing what type of safe you want will help you decide what lock you need.

Popular Safe Brands

Popular safe brands include SMP Security, Dudley Safes, Phoenix Safes, Chubbsafes and Securikey. These brands have a lot of industry knowledge as they have worked in the safe industry for many years. They produce good quality safes that offer practical security solutions for everyone's different security needs.

Shop for your perfect home safe or office safe here. if you have any questions please call us on 0161 819 6888.