Safe Check List — This Check List will help you to identify a good safe.
Take note of the following points:
- Only use safes that are produced and certified to the current EN 1143–1 standard
- Ensure each safe has four to eight-point mounting installed by specialist staff
- Anchoring to the wall and floor must also be possible as well
- Only use electronic combination locks (no keys)
- Look out for doors that close in a virtually gap-free manner (so that lever tools cannot be applied)
- Min. 65 mm all-sided armour-plating (cutting discs have a maximum cutting depth of 65 mm)
- An Emergency locking device must be present
- Locking bolts must be fed through
- Tap the safe and listen out for any hollow sounds
- Take a look behind the door panel and check out the structure
More details
1. Only use safes certified according to EN 1143–1
Do not use any other non-certified products. As a purchaser, it is not easy for you to assess the quality and level of security of the safe. Insurance companies and police advice centres recommend a resistance grade 3 safe as a minimum requirement.
2. The right location
A good safe should never be hidden or disguised, but rather it should be clearly visible to any penetrators. The burglar will then only focus on the safe. The rest of the building will then remain undisturbed. You should base this on the principle that offenders will expect money and jewellery to be kept solely within the safe. However, this tactic will only work if the safe is secure and the offenders are not forced to go and search for a key within the building.
3. Protection against removal: Four-point mounting
Regardless of the weight involved, a safe must be mounted by an expert in a four-point manner to walls or to the floor of the building using steel screws and dowels that are as thick as your finger.
4. Protection against unlocking the safe with the located key: Combination lock
Safes with combination locks save a great deal of hassle. If offenders come across a key lock, then they will systematically search through the building, leaving behind a scene of absolute chaos.
5. Protection against lever tools and breaking open the safe: secure structure
Safes must be secured in such a way that lever tools cannot be applied (doors that close in a virtually gap-free manner). A back gauge on the hinge side of the safe doors together with appropriate armour-plating help combat attempts to break open the safe. An automatic deadlock in the event of a forcible attack is a matter of course.
6. Protection against cutting open / oxy-acetylene cutting / drilling / special tools: multiple armour-plating
Multiple-armour plating for the safe helps combat attacks using the most varied of tools.
7. For convenience – the more accessible a safe is, the more it is used
Make sure you put the safe where you need it – and always at a convenient height for the user, where possible. It is only then that you will enjoy using the safe on a frequent basis. This is because the best safe is of no use if the things that are most valuable to you are not secured in the safe but are instead lying somewhere around the house.