Configure safe

From an air-raid shel­ter a vault

A safe in your own home? A per­fectly sen­si­ble invest­ment if you store valuable items at home. But an entire vault? Some peo­ple will pro­ba­bly raise their eye­brows and ask them­sel­ves, firstly, who needs such a thing and, secondly, whe­ther you can even afford it. Yes, you can! In addi­tion to stron­g­rooms that are cus­to­mi­sed to the cus­to­mer’s needs and built using modu­lar ele­ments, there is also the option of con­ver­ting the air-raid shel­ter in your home into a stron­g­room. All you need is a cer­ti­fied armou­red door. Would you have thought it?

Admit­tedly, the scep­ti­cism is no coin­ci­dence: the word “vault” pro­ba­bly cata­pults some peo­ple into the Scr­ooge McDuck uni­verse and they see a room full of coins and gold bars in front of them. It’s quite clear that this idea seems exag­ge­ra­ted. But just because you don’t store ton­nes of gold bars in your home does­n’t mean that you would­n’t bene­fit from a stron­g­room.

Pre­ser­ved func­tion of the air-raid shel­ter

Back to the begin­ning. How can an air-raid shel­ter also be used as a safe and panic room and what are its func­tions? The most important infor­ma­tion first: the func­tion of the air-raid shel­ter is fully retai­ned when it is con­ver­ted into a safe or panic room. On the one hand, this is important by law, as it sti­pu­la­tes which hou­ses must be equip­ped with an air-raid shel­ter: Air-raid shel­ters built from 1987 onwards must be main­tai­ned by the homeow­ners because they are part of the civil defence con­cept. Howe­ver, since 2012, anyone buil­ding a detached house today is no lon­ger legally obli­ged to build an air-raid shel­ter and is the­r­e­fore exempt from the shel­ter obli­ga­tion or has to pay fees for a cen­tra­li­sed air-raid shel­ter. Eit­her way, you don’t have to com­pro­mise or make any serious decis­i­ons if you decide to upgrade to a safe room.

Wert­schutz- und Panik­raum in einem

Damit Sie ihren Luft­schutz­raum nach der Umrü­stung nicht nur als Wert­schutz­raum, son­dern auch als Panik­raum ver­wen­den kön­nen, emp­fiehlt es sich ein dop­pel­tes Tür­schloss mit Not­me­cha­nis­mus zu wäh­len. Somit kön­nen Sie den Raum sowohl von aussen ver­schlie­ssen, um ihre Wert­ge­gen­stände darin sicher auf­zu­be­wah­ren, aber auch von innen, wenn sie sich darin zu ihrer eige­nen Sicher­heit ein­schlie­ssen möch­ten. Das sind übri­gens auch die bei­den wesent­li­chen Unter­schiede zwi­schen einem Wert­schutz­raum und einem Panik­raum: Erste­rer hat die Haupt­funk­tion, immer geschlos­sen zu sein, damit die zu schüt­zen­den Güter sicher auf­be­wahrt wer­den, wäh­rend der Panik­raum offen bleibt, damit man sich darin so schnell wie mög­lich vor einer dro­hen­den Gefahr in Sicher­heit brin­gen kann. Die Kom­bi­na­tion von Wert­schutz- und Panik­raum wird durch eine zusätz­li­che Bedien­ein­heit im Raum­in­ne­ren ermög­licht. Somit kann man die Türe jeder­zeit auch von innen wie­der mit dem Code öff­nen.

Umgebauter Luftschutzkeller zum Tresorraum

The func­tion of the shel­ter is not affec­ted by the instal­la­tion of an armou­red door.  

Quick and pain­less instal­la­tion

The armou­red door, also known as the safe room door, is sim­ply moun­ted on the inner wall of the air-raid shel­ter so that it does not inter­fere with the func­tion of the con­crete door of the air-raid shel­ter. Instal­la­tion on site usually takes around one working day. This means that your air-raid shel­ter can be con­ver­ted into a safe room in a very short time and with little effort. Inci­den­tally, an armou­red door can also be instal­led in other rooms in the base­ment to create a stron­g­room. The pre­re­qui­site for this is load-bea­ring con­crete walls with a thic­k­ness of at least 20 cm. If this is taken into account in a new build, the level of secu­rity in the home can be increa­sed con­sider­a­bly with rela­tively little effort. Com­pared to a stron­g­room in modu­lar cons­truc­tion, where addi­tio­nal wall ele­ments are erec­ted and wel­ded tog­e­ther, fit­ting an armou­red door not only saves time, but also money. Depen­ding on the degree of pro­tec­tion and addi­tio­nal opti­ons, the costs are in the lower five-figure range, whe­reas a modu­lar stron­g­room costs many times more.

A long-term invest­ment

Anyone thin­king about upgrading the func­tion­a­lity of their own air-raid shel­ter and thus signi­fi­cantly incre­a­sing the level of secu­rity in their own home should seek advice from a com­pe­tent and expe­ri­en­ced secu­rity com­pany. Waldis Tresore AG from Rüm­lang has been dedi­ca­ted to the topic of secu­rity for over 40 years and has alre­ady equip­ped num­e­rous pri­vate indi­vi­du­als and com­pa­nies in Switz­er­land and abroad with its Swiss qua­lity pro­ducts. “When it comes to secu­rity, it is extre­mely important to work with sta­ble and sus­tainable com­pa­nies. Secu­rity is a long-term invest­ment where it is important to be able to rely on a depen­da­ble part­ner at all times — whe­ther today or in 20 years’ time,” says CEO and owner Mar­kus Wirth.

We’re happy to pro­vide per­so­na­li­sed infor­ma­tion and advice.