Wall Safe Buying Tips
A wall safe is designed specifically to mount within a wall space, between the walls support beams (studs).
Pros - Good for concealing your valuables.
Can be placed in convenient locations within the home, for quick easy access.
Cons - Far less secure than a safe bolted to the floor. If discovered, a wall safe can be cut or pried from the wall.
No fire protection is available for wall safes due to the narrow space they occupy.
Wall Safe Specific Buying Tips:
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Install in an accessible location - All too often safes go unused when they are located too far away to be conveniently accessed. Many times a new safe buyer will over think the planned location for their wall safe, locating it in some cleverly concealed location or disguising the safe behind a false door, mirror, or wall that requires too much time or too many steps to access. While concealing your safe is fine, don’t do this at the cost of overall convenience or the safe will likely fall out of use over time. It’s far better to be storing your commonly used valuables in a not so hidden safe than to have these items left out for easy pilfering. Rather than outthinking the burglar along with yourself, rely on the safe to perform its job of protection and place it in a location it’s likely to get the most use. If the safe is anchored to 2x4 support studs, as they usually are, the entire safe is venerable to theft so we suggest you avoid storing highly valuable items in the wall safe. If you insist on a safe that provides a higher degree of security, we suggest a free standing safe or mounting the wall safe to steel supports or supports larger than a 2x4.
- Size the safe for your preferred location - Wall safes are built to fit in most standard depth walls. Step one is to determine how thick the wall is where you want to install the safe. As mentioned previously, find a location where you can conveniently access the safe and then check the nearby walls for the deepest wall depth.
- You may find that the deepest available wall depth is limited to 3.5", the thickness of most wall spaces due to the 2x4 wall studs. This is fine, there are many wall safes available to fit within this available space... though storage space will obviously be limited.
- If you feel you would like a deeper safe you have several options:
- Place the safe in an area where the back can protrude into an unseen area, such as a closet or empty space.
- Frame in around the back of the safe so it is no longer visible. This works best in a closet or in the back of a cabinet.
- Consider a free standing burglary chest safe which can be bolted to the floor. Many clients will also have a cabinet built around a burglary chest safe to help conceal it.
- Consider self installation - Most of our customers are amazed at how easy a wall safe is to install. The outer flange on our wall safes will cover the unfinished hole in the drywall and eliminates most finish work. The wall safes come predrilled with bolt holes for installation and simply bolt from the inside directly into your wall studs.
General Safe Buying Tips:
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Check for a thick solid steel door and walls: It is essential that the safe you purchase has both a solid steel door and walls of substantial thickness. Without this base level of steel protection, any safe can be opened within minutes despite the hoopla of additional advertised protection features. While there are many wall safes out there, virtually all fail miserably in this essential area.
The safe you choose must have at minimum a ½” thick solid steel door and a ¼” thick solid steel body.
Be highly suspect if the safe manufacturer or reseller doesn’t state solid steel or list the steel thickness for their wall safe.
Click here to learn more about the industry recognized protection rating systems.
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Judge a safe by its weight - Weight is one of the biggest factors when determining the base ability of a safe to protect from burglary.
- Steel is heavy, a quality wall safe will weigh much more than its sheetmetal counterpart. These are the safes to look for.
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Stick with a UL approved lock - Always check that the safe you plan to purchase has a UL approved Group 2 lock or better. The three dependable lock manufacturers are LaGard, Sargent & Greenleaf, and Kaba Mas. These are the only lock manufacturers that produce locks guaranteed to provide decades of trouble free operation.
If you decide on a safe without a UL approval, there's a 95% chance the safe's lock comes from China. The vast majority of safe manufacturers who equip their safes with "their own" lock brand also use Chinese locks. While highly affordable, Chinese built locks are highly undependable and are prone to early failure.
We routinely receive calls from agonizing safe owners permanently locked out of their safe by a malfunctioning Chinese lock. Opening these safes is generally a very costly and time consuming ordeal as it's nearly impossible for even a licensed locksmith to obtain accurate blueprints to aid in a clean repairable entry into the safe. Most safe owners in this unfortunate position opt for the faster and less expensive forced entry option. The safe is rendered unusable after a forced entry and the owner is stuck with a hefty bill and in the market for a reliable and secure safe... many current clients sought out our company after experiencing one or more highly unpleasant lockouts with inferior safes.
To view details on our UL approved electronic keypad lock, click here.
Click here to view info on our combination dial lock.
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Consider entry convenience: A safe that is slow to open or access is a safe you are less likely to use. Adding an electronic lock can make opening the safe quick and easy, as well as enabling the user to reset the combination when needed without the aid of a locksmith or combination kit. For the ultimate in user convenience and security, a high grade biometric lock can't be beat.
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Check for re-lockers: All quality safes should have re-lockers to help ensure the safe remains locked in the case of a burglary. Re-lockers are hardened pins that are triggered, in a variety of ways during an attack, and cannot be retracted without hours of drilling. The number of re-lockers on a safe will range from 2-10+ depending on the size and burglary grade of the safe.
Bear in mind, re-locker pins only prove useful when the safe has a substantially thick steel door and walls. Most safes today are equipped with two or more re-locker pins. But on a steel deficient safe, these pins along with the locking bolts simply tear or bend right through the safe's thin door jamb by prying on the safe door with nothing more than a common crowbar.
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Consider a custom wall safe: Does the size of your chosen safe make best use of the space it's occupying? Is the interior layout of the safe well suited to your needs? In many cases there's room for improvement and this is where a custom safe is worth consideration. Brown Safe is one the only safe manufactures in the world to offer fully customizable safes. Custom sizes, finishes, and interiors are available at a very reasonable price point. We can work with you and/or your interior designer, architect, and carpenter to ensure a quality safe built to your exact specifications.
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