Value safes certified to EN 1143-1

Value safes certified to EN 1143-1

What the grade means

The grade is how long the safe held out when it was attacked. An accredited testing laboratory goes at the safe with tools - drills, angle grinders, crowbars, and at the higher grades cutting torches - and measures the resistance in resistance units. More units, higher grade.

So it is not a description of the safe but a test result. Two safes can look identical and sit two grades apart. That is the whole point of letting somebody other than the manufacturer settle the question.

Grade 0 and I is the usual level for smaller businesses, practices and homes with valuables that need to be insured. Grade II and III take over as the sums grow, and are used by retail, jewellers and businesses handling cash. Grade IV and above is rarely relevant outside banking, the jewellery trade and particularly exposed operations.

The Grade filter picks the level directly. If you know the sum that has to be stored instead, use Recommended Value Limit.

The value limits, and the three conditions attached

The Swedish insurance industry's technical recommendation FTR 1028 sets out how much cash may be kept at each protection level. It starts at SEK 50,000 for grade 0 and ends at SEK 1,650,000 for grade VII.

But three conditions come with those figures, and they change the picture:

• The amounts apply to cash, on unalarmed premises. That is the baseline the recommendation works from.
• If the premises are alarmed and have strong perimeter protection, the insurer will often approve a higher figure than the table shows.
• Jewellery, watches and gemstones are revalued. The insurer rates them by how easily they can be sold on, not by what they cost.

What applies to you is in your policy. FTR 1028 is a recommendation to the industry, not a rule binding your insurer - and the figures are Swedish. Ask them before you order, not after.

Already own a safe?

Then it may be certified to a standard that no longer exists. Sweden has changed system five times since the nineteen fifties, and an older safe carries designations that do not map directly onto today's grades:

• SIS 704001, made 1958-1965. V class, for example SIS 704001 V2.
• SIS 837501, 1965-1978. V class, for example SIS 837501 V2S.
• SMS 3000 and SS 3000, 1978-1986. Protection value points, for example SS 3000 280-360p.
• SS 3150 and INSTA 610, 1986-1994. Protection value points, for example SS 3150 150p.
• LPS 1183, 1994-1997. Grade, for example LPS 1183 Grade IV.
• EN 1143-1, from 1997 onwards. Grade, today's system.

The designation is usually on a plate inside the door. If you find it and wonder what it corresponds to today, call us - we have seen most of them. And check with your insurer before assuming an old safe still counts.

Fire protection in a value safe

Most of the value safes here protect against fire as well, but not all. The Fire protection filter states in plain words what the safe saves and for how long, and it has an explicit value for the safes that have no fire protection at all.

Burglary protection and fire protection are two different constructions. Thick steel resists tools but conducts heat. Fire protection comes from an insulating layer, and it has to be built in separately. A safe with a high grade is therefore not automatically fire resistant - they are two separate tests, and both are stated on the product page.

The fire protection here is for paper. The Fire rating filter shows the standard: NT Fire 017, EN 1047-1 which appears as S 60P, or EN 15659 which appears as LFS. Paper only starts losing information above 170 degrees, and that is the threshold the test measures against.

If hard drives, USB drives or backup tapes have to survive the fire, this is not enough. A hard drive is damaged at 70 degrees, and no safe in this category is tested to that level. Then a data media safe is what you want, or a fire chest inside the value safe.

Bolting down: what decides whether the protection applies

The most common thing in a burglary is that the safe is carried out. The thief takes it away and forces it open somewhere else, at leisure, where time costs nothing. And time is the only thing a value safe really sells.

So anchoring it is not an accessory. Nearly every safe here has pre-drilled bolt holes in the base, and the Prepared for bolt-down filter shows which. The heaviest stand firm through sheer weight, but even there bolting is about making sure the safe cannot be tipped over.

Insurers count on it. A bolted safe is often approved for a higher figure, and in some cases it affects the premium. Ask your insurer - it is one of the few places where you get something back for an effort that costs a drill.

Put the safe in a corner. That makes it far harder to use leverage with a crowbar or a pry bar, which is the tool that does the most damage fastest. It costs nothing and it rarely appears in any manual.

Weight, and getting it in

A value safe is heavy, and that is the point. The steel thickness and the concrete fill that give the resistance weigh a great deal, and the heaviest models here need thinking about before delivery.

Check three things before ordering: that the floor structure takes the weight, that the safe passes the doorways and stairwell corners on the way in, and that there is a place where it can stand without being moved again.

The Outer height in mm and Outer width in mm filters handle the measurements. The weight is on each product page.

We can carry it in for you. If the safe has to go up a staircase, through a narrow door or onto the floor above, we will arrange it. Carrying-in is quoted separately, since the price depends on weight, floor level and what the route looks like - tell us the circumstances and we will price it.

If you are unsure, call before you order. We deliver value safes every week and know which stairwells usually work.

Locks

A key lock is the most common and has nothing that can run out. Keys for a value safe are long and double-bitted, often protected against copying, which means spare keys cannot be cut afterwards.

A keypad lock does away with the key entirely. The code can be changed when someone leaves, and several people can have one each. It is also a deterrent in itself: thieves know the key is often hidden somewhere on the premises and go looking for it, and the looking does the damage.

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

Use good quality alkaline batteries, Duracell or Energizer. Cheap batteries leak and can put the lock out of action.

Using the filters

Start with Grade or Recommended Value Limit, depending on whether you are working from a security level or from a sum. The two point at the same safes from different directions.

Then Fire protection, if anything in the safe has to survive a fire. After that Outer height in mm and Outer width in mm for the space, Prepared for bolt-down for the anchoring and Lock system for the rest.

Not sure? Call us on +46 770 22 01 22. Tell us what is going in, whether the premises are alarmed, and what your insurer has said. Then we will tell you which grade you need, and we would much rather do it before the purchase than after.