Theft-delaying safes for jewellery and valuables

Theft-delaying safes without fire protection

What theft-delaying means, and what it does not

A theft-delaying safe is built to cost time, not to be impregnable. It should not be carried out, should not open quietly, and should not give way in the few minutes a burglar is willing to spend.

That goes further than you might think, because most domestic break-ins are short. Whoever is inside is looking for what is lying about and wants to be out again. A safe that means fetching tools, making noise and working for several minutes usually gets passed over.

But given time and the right tools, any safe can be opened, and these go faster than a rated one. An angle grinder in the garage is a genuine threat to an unrated safe.

And that is where the difference lies: the safes here carry no testing - not SS-EN 14450, not SSF 3492, not EN 1143-1. Those tests measure precisely how long a safe holds against defined tools. That is the difference between a safe that works and a safe somebody else has certified how long it works.

If an insurance policy requires a storage rating, this level will not meet it. Then you want security safes rated S2 to EN 14450, or high-security safes above that.

What should not go in here

These safes protect against burglary, not against fire. That makes the choice simple: metal survives, paper and electronics do not.

A gold ring can be picked out of the ashes after a house fire. A passport, a will, a photo album or the hard drive with twenty years of pictures cannot - they are gone long before the safe is even warm through.

And those are rarely what a thief is after. If something needs protecting from fire rather than from theft, this is the wrong safe, however good it is at the other job. Then it is fire-resistant safes you want, and they come in the same sizes.

Plenty of people need both. That is usually solved with two safes rather than one - a small theft-delaying safe for the jewellery and a fire-resistant one for the documents - and it normally costs less than a single safe that has to do everything.

Bolt it down

It makes no difference how hard a safe is to open if it can be carried out and opened somewhere quiet. A small safe rarely weighs more than one person can lift, so anchoring is not a detail here - it is the whole protection.

Nearly all the safes in this category are prepared for bolting to a floor or a wall, and the Swedish Theft Prevention Association recommends anchoring for any safe under 150 kg. The Boltable filter shows which ones are.

Code lock or key?

An electronic code lock dominates here, and it suits a home: no key to hide, and you can change the code whenever you like. Most models also have an emergency key override for when the batteries run flat.

Keep that override key somewhere other than next to the safe. It sounds obvious and is rarely done.

The Lock Type filter shows what each safe has.

How big does it need to be?

Smaller than you think, usually. A safe for jewellery, watches and a few documents does not need to be large - and a small safe is easier to place discreetly, which is protection in itself.

Think about what is actually going in before you choose a size. If a folder or a laptop has to fit, the safe grows quickly. Outer Height (mm) and Outer Width (mm) help when the spot is fixed - in a wardrobe, under a bench or inside a cupboard.

For hotels and letting

A room safe solves a different problem from a home safe: the guest sets their own code, and staff have to be able to open it when the guest forgets it. Several of the models here are made for that, with a master code alongside the guest's.

Call us if you are fitting out several rooms at once and we will go through what is reasonable per room.