Living in style and safety

When it comes to pro­tec­ting valu­ables, the idea of a safe isn’t far off the mind. Yet for some, it’s far from the ima­gi­na­tion: The idea of a safe is anything but aes­the­tic in many peo­p­le’s minds. In a time when beau­tiful living is beco­ming incre­a­singly important to many, we the­r­e­fore ask our­sel­ves: How can secure and sty­lish living be com­bi­ned?

Secu­rity and valu­ables pro­tec­tion in your home are key issues that deserve increa­sed atten­tion, espe­ci­ally if you have valuable items in your home. These can range from watches, jewelry, or pre­cious metals to per­so­nal heir­looms or kee­p­sa­kes. What they all have in com­mon: losing them would be extre­mely pain­ful. One way to pre­vent this is with a safe. But what opti­ons are there for inte­gra­ting it attrac­tively into your living space?

Com­bi­ning func­tion­a­lity and design

The days when safes were bor­ing, dreary, and unat­trac­tive blocks of metal are long gone. Nowa­days, there are various ways in which safes can be refi­ned to look attrac­tive and fit in with your inte­rior design. Depen­ding on your per­so­nal pre­fe­ren­ces, they can eit­her be dis­creetly inte­gra­ted into your living envi­ron­ment or pla­ced cen­trally as a spe­cial eye-cat­cher.

Rea­sons for inte­gra­ting a safe into your home con­cept

It may sound para­do­xi­cal at first glance, but during a burglary, it’s advan­ta­ge­ous if thie­ves can imme­dia­tely see where valu­ables are. This way, they don’t have to rum­mage through the entire house and turn it upside down, but can focus directly on the safe. This avo­ids a lot of chaos and signi­fi­cant pro­perty damage – assum­ing, of course, that the safe can with­stand the attempted attacks. The­r­e­fore, it’s espe­ci­ally important that the safe is pro­perly ancho­red in its loca­tion and cer­ti­fied accor­ding to the EN 1143–1 stan­dard. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion accor­ding to this stan­dard is the most important cri­ter­ion to con­sider when purcha­sing a safe. The hig­her the resi­stance rating of a safe accor­ding to EN 1143–1, the more secure it is, and the grea­ter the value that can be stored and insu­red within it.

Plan­ning and Instal­la­tion

If you want to address the issue of secu­rity in your own home and purchase a safe, you first need to distin­gu­ish bet­ween exi­sting living spaces and new cons­truc­tion pro­jects. In the lat­ter case, it is extre­mely advi­sa­ble to include the safe in the cons­truc­tion plan­ning and to cont­act an expe­ri­en­ced safe com­pany early on. This allows the car­pen­ter, archi­tect, and safe buil­der to coor­di­nate from the out­set to avoid addi­tio­nal costs that could arise from neglec­ting indi­vi­dual aspects. In order for the safe to be instal­led at the desi­red loca­tion and cor­rectly ancho­red to the floor or rear wall, both the load-bea­ring capa­city of the floor and the con­di­tion of the wall must meet cer­tain cri­te­ria. With light­weight walls, for exam­ple, ancho­ring to the rear wall would not be pos­si­ble. Making such com­pro­mi­ses would result in a loss of pro­duct secu­rity. This should be avo­ided when­ever pos­si­ble. Howe­ver, early plan­ning is not only rele­vant from a secu­rity per­spec­tive: Power cables requi­red for con­nec­ting to an alarm system or for inte­rior fea­tures such as LED light­ing or watch wind­ers can also be plan­ned and instal­led in a tar­ge­ted man­ner. This makes them as unob­tru­sive as pos­si­ble, if not com­ple­tely invi­si­ble.

A safe can also be easily inte­gra­ted into exi­sting living spaces. Just as with a new buil­ding, some preli­mi­nary cla­ri­fi­ca­tion is requi­red, as not every loca­tion is equally sui­ta­ble. In addi­tion to floor load and wall con­di­ti­ons, the instal­la­tion must be carefully con­side­red. It is not uncom­mon for safes to be instal­led with the help of a crane over a bal­c­ony or win­dow. Because safes weigh seve­ral hundred kilo­grams, this is often the safest and fastest option, espe­ci­ally when very long or steep stairs must be nego­tia­ted. What quickly beco­mes clear: Instal­ling a safe is a com­plex pro­cess and requi­res careful plan­ning. It can­not and should not be per­for­med by the end user because it ent­ails num­e­rous risks and also con­tri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to the pro­duc­t’s secu­rity. Repu­ta­ble safe pro­vi­ders spe­cia­lize in this as much as in the pro­duct its­elf.

Long-term secure and sty­lish living

Inte­gra­ting a safe into your home requi­res careful plan­ning and con­side­ra­tion of various aspects. Despite the effort and the many points to con­sider, a secure and visually appe­al­ing safe is a wort­hwhile invest­ment. After all, it’s a pro­duct desi­gned for lon­ge­vity and will relia­bly ful­fill its pur­pose for deca­des. Vie­w­ing secu­rity as an important part of a well-thought-out living con­cept, rather than as a sepa­rate issue, is an important step toward a home where you feel com­ple­tely com­for­ta­ble.