Choosing the Safe to Protect Your Valuables

Posted on: 7 September 2017

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Whether it is in homes or organizations, security is often thought of in terms of locks and entrance controls. However, the safety of your valuables goes beyond securing your entries and exits into investing in safes, which serve as an added layer of protection. Your hard-to-replace documents such as crucial office records and personal certification documents deserve a safe place for their storage. There are certain factors that you must bear in mind when choosing your safe. The following are some of the top considerations you should make.

Identifying Your Perils

The main reason why you need a safe is to ensure your valuables are protected against all odds from loss or destruction. Therefore, the first step you should take is to identify these perils so that you can get the appropriate safe.

Fire Resistance

Most people who invest in safes have the peril of fire as their top concern. Fire-resistant safes are rated based on the type of material they are designed to protect and the duration of the protection. For instance, safes designed for paper document protection should not get extremely hot because doing so can damage the documents inside. The same applies to sensitive materials such as computer discs and tapes.

Burglary Protection

This peril is mostly of concern among commercial users. To test for burglary resistance, common tools such as explosives and torches are used to gauge how long the safe can withstand an attack.

Water Resistance

In the case of floods or broken water pipes, water damage becomes imminent. Though tests for water resistance differ from one testing organization to another, you may find some submerging the safes in water to simulate the effects a flood would have.

Where to Install

Your house design will affect where you install your safe. Ideally, the basement is a good place, but in flood-prone areas, the basement may be a greater risk. The master bedroom is one of the spaces to be avoided because burglars make their first stop here in search of valuables.

What to Keep in Your Safe

When considering buying a safe, you should have the documents or valuables you want to keep, in mind. Basically, a home safe gives you accessibility round the clock to documents you may require from time to time. Documents such as savings bonds, life insurance policies, stocks certificates, tax returns, and births and deaths certificates can be kept in safes for the duration they are useful. There are various types of safes including diversion safes, fire-resistant safes, wall safes, smart safes, and room-sized fireproof volts you can invest in.

For more information, contact a business such as Askwith Company.