Safes for home and business

Safes for the home, the office and the business

What needs saving: paper, digital media or valuables

Paper and hard drives tolerate very different amounts of heat. Paper only starts losing information above 170 degrees. A hard drive is damaged at 70. Backup tapes, diskettes, negatives and film are the most sensitive of all and give way at 50.

A safe tested for paper therefore does not automatically protect the digital. This is the most common reason people buy the wrong safe, and it is an expensive one, because what sits on the hard drive rarely exists anywhere else.

The figures come from the test standard NT Fire 017, which classifies cabinets by what the contents can take. The full reasoning is on document cabinets and data media safes.

Nothing that needs to survive a fire? Then fire protection is a cost without a benefit, and the safe ends up far larger and heavier than its contents require. Choose No fire rating under Fire rating and those safes drop out. Cash, jewellery and keys often belong here.

Theft rating: four steps, and what insurers ask for

A theft rated safe has been attacked with tools by an accredited testing laboratory and certified to hold out for a defined length of time. A safe without a theft rating is called burglar-deterrent: built to slow an attack down, but never tested against a burglary standard. The difference shows in steel thickness, lock quality and weight, and it shows in the price.

The Burglary rating filter has four settings, and they cover the whole Swedish market:

• No theft rating - burglar-deterrent. It stops the opportunist, not the burglar who came prepared.
• Burglary protection safe S2 to EN 14450 - the lightest tested protection. The Swedish Theft Prevention Association recommends cabinets tested to SS-EN 14450 for domestic use.
• Security cabinet to SSF 3492 - stronger. This is the class Swedish insurers tend to require for things like vehicle keys held by a dealer.
• Value safe to EN 1143-1 - the strongest, graded in steps. This is what gets used when a sum has to be insured.

What your own insurer requires is in your policy, and terms differ between companies and between countries. If the contents are insured in a business, a theft rating is nearly always a condition. For a home it is more often a choice: how much resistance do you want, and what would it cost you to lose what goes in the safe.

Fire rating: what the minutes mean

The rating is a verdict in minutes, from a furnace test. The safe is placed in a furnace that follows a defined temperature curve, and the time is measured until the temperature inside reaches the level where the contents are damaged. That number becomes the class: 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes.

The Fire rating filter shows which standard each safe was tested against - NT Fire 017 is the Nordic method, EN 15659 appears as LFS, and some models are tested to the manufacturer's own method. It is also stated on every product page.

More minutes is not automatically the right answer. What decides is how long a fire would burn before it is put out, and how hard the contents are to replace. A receipt can be reissued. An original will, or the only copy of something, cannot.

Some models carry a lifetime after-the-fire guarantee: if the safe has been through a fire it is replaced. The details of how to register the safe come with the manufacturer's documentation in the delivery.

Small or large: measurements and placement

Measure the space before choosing the safe, and measure it in three directions. Height and width can be filtered under Outer height in mm and Outer width in mm. The depth is on each product page.

Allow for the door. A safe has a thick door that swings out, and it needs clear space in front. If the safe is going into a wardrobe or under a counter, it is often the door rather than the cabinet that decides whether it fits.

A fire protected safe is much larger than its contents. The insulation sits in the walls and eats into both the height and the width. So do not compare external measurements between a fire safe and an unrated steel cabinet - they hold very different amounts at the same outer size. Internal measurements are on the product page.

Weight is a placement question too. The heaviest value safes weigh enough that the floor structure has to take them, and they have to come through the doorways on the way in. Ask us if you are unsure - we deliver them every week and know what usually works.

Locks: keypad, key or fingerprint

Electronic keypad locks are the most common. No key to lose, the code can be changed, and on many models several people can have a code each. Key locks are simpler and have nothing that can run out. Fingerprint locks are available on some models and are the quickest of all when the safe is opened often.

Many key locked safes can be had with an electronic keypad as an option. If the product page does not say so, ask us - it applies to more models than you would think.

Keypad locks run on batteries, and battery quality decides whether they work. Use good quality alkaline batteries, Duracell or Energizer. Cheap batteries leak and can put the lock out of action.

Some models also have an emergency override key for the moment the batteries run out at the worst possible time. The product page says which.

Should the safe be bolted down

A safe that can be carried out is a safe that gets carried out. Most of the safes here have bolt holes in the base, and often in the back as well. The Prepared for bolt-down filter shows which.

For the lighter safes this is not optional. If the safe is light enough for one person to lift, anchoring it is what makes the burglary protection real. The heaviest value safes stand firm through sheer weight, and there bolting is more about stopping the safe being tipped over.

Bolted into concrete it holds. Into a wooden floor or a plasterboard wall it does not. If you have no concrete to bolt into, call us and we will look at which models weigh enough to manage without.

Using the filters

The whole range of safes sits in this category, and the filters above the products are the quickest way through it.

Start with whichever threat matters most to you. If something has to survive a fire, choose under Fire rating. If burglary is the real risk, choose under Burglary rating. If you would rather see the burglary protection described in plain words, without standard designations, the same thing is under Burglary protection.

Then the placement: Outer height in mm and Outer width in mm if the safe has to fit a particular spot, and Prepared for bolt-down if it needs anchoring. Lock system and Colour settle the rest.

If you already know roughly what you are after, the categories below are quicker.

Not sure? Call us on +46 770 22 01 22. We are glad to help you choose, and we would much rather do it before the purchase than after.