If you store many valuables in your home, you have probably considered installing a safe to prevent them from being stolen in case of a break-in. If you get a high-quality safe with adequate security measures, the chance of a would-be thief robbing you dramatically decreases. Safes are some of the most effective security measures.
However, safes are not 100% secure. A criminal with the right set of tools might still be able to break into a high-quality safe. Moreover, even if you have a high-quality safe, if the safe itself is not secured, a criminal might be tempted to take the whole safe with them and take their time to open it in their own home.
Therefore, not only do you need the right kind of safe, but you also need to secure it in your home. This involves mounting or attaching it to a solid surface, so a thief cannot walk away with it. Another aspect is putting the safe in the right place so a thief cannot find it in the first place. Let’s discuss how to secure a safe in your home.
The Right Kind of Safe Matters
Before we discuss securing a safe in your home, it’s worth talking about the safe itself. Getting the right kind of safe matters because even if you do everything right to secure the safe in your home, it won’t matter if it’s a low-quality safe. So, how do you ensure that you have a safe that will protect your belongings from thieves?
One crucial factor is the thickness of the steel used, as well as the weight of the safe. The thicker the steel, the harder it will be for thieves to break into. Therefore, a safe made of at least 6-gauge or 8-gauge steel is recommended.
Remember, the smaller the gauge, the thicker the steel. Not only is a thicker safe harder to break into, but it’s also much heavier. Even a small safe made with thick steel can easily weigh over 100 pounds. As burglars usually only take what they can carry, they likely won’t try to take a large and heavy safe.
Another good idea is a reinforced safe. These feature thick steel bars that are welded around the safe’s perimeter, increasing resistance to physical attacks and attempts to pry it open.
The next tip is to get a safe with at least a TL-15 burglary rating. These safes are rated to be resistant to damage or destruction by tools, torches, and explosives for at least 15 minutes. If a criminal doesn’t know when you’ll come back home, they likely won’t spend a long time trying to break into a safe.
People often think they must decide between keypads, combination locks, and biometric security measures. However, the best safes will combine multiple security measures. For example, many safes will combine a digital keypad with a biometric fingerprint scanner or, in some cases, an iris scanner.
Bolt the Safe to a Wall or the Floor
Perhaps the best way to truly secure a safe in your home is to attach it to something, usually a wall or the floor. Where you secure it will depend on the mounting kit you get and the kind of walls and floors you have.
The important thing is that if you plan to secure a safe to a wall, it must be secured to wall studs that are thick enough so the safe will resist being pried off the studs and thick enough so that the studs won’t break due to blunt force impacts.
A burglar could always use a power saw to cut through the studs and carry the safe away, but they usually don’t want to spend a long time in one home using noisy power tools.
That said, wooden wall studs still aren’t secure as the other option, bolting the safe to a concrete floor. If you have the safe bolted to a concrete floor, the chances of a thief being able to take the safe are nearly zero. These safes are bolted from the inside, so no exposed bolts can be cut through, making them highly secure.
A burglar would have to use a jackhammer, sledgehammer, or concrete saw to smash apart the concrete around the safe until the bolts are loose enough to lift the safe from the concrete. Even this can be difficult because breaking the concrete around the safe won’t necessarily loosen the bolts in the concrete under the safe.
You can rest assured that unless you have millions of dollars in your safe, no thief will go through the trouble of breaking concrete to get your safe. That would require a lot of time and specialized tools and be extremely noisy. Keeping that in mind, where you have your safe matters too.
The Best and Worst Places to Have a Safe in Your Home
The type of safe you have matters, as does how you secure it to a surface in your home. However, where you hide your safe is another story.
The Best Places to Hide a Safe
Let’s look at the best places to hide a safe in your home.
Although movie crooks always check behind pictures on walls, this doesn’t usually happen in real life. Unless a criminal knows the safe is there, they usually won’t try taking picture frames off the wall to check for them.
Hiding a safe in the floor is another good option, particularly if you have solid floors. If the door of the safe is exposed and the rest is buried in concrete, cutting the safe out of the floor will be very difficult. You can then conceal the safe under a rug, mat, or table.
A large basement with concrete ground, especially if the basement is cluttered, is the perfect place to hide a safe. Basements are dark, smelly, and often full of junk, thus making them uninviting and easy to hide small safes.
The attic is another good place to hide a safe. Attics are usually spaces where people store junk, so criminals usually won’t check there, plus attics can be hard to find and access.
Under a sink filled with cleaners and chemicals is another good spot. Most criminals won’t assume there is a safe behind your Windex or lemon Pledge, plus under the sink is an awkward place to inspect.
The Worst Places to Hide a Safe
Here are some of the worst places to conceal or place a safe.
- Under the bed
- Closets
- In a pantry or with food
- Under a staircase
- In the garage
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many steps you can take to secure a safe in your home. First, having a safe that cannot be easily broken into helps a lot. Then, find the right place to put the safe and know where the worst spots are.
Finally, once you know the best place, using mounting hardware to lock it into place is how you stop a thief from walking away with it.