Safe Buying Tips - Ed Kinsey

There is a great need to keep some documents that are very important close at hand.  We recommend that you store a certified copy of all important documents off site in a safe deposit box or something of the sort.  However, for those documents you want on site, or if you choose to store all of your important documents on site, a home safe is a great solution. 

Here are 6 tips on buying and storing documents at home in a safe.

1-     Before you buy a safe, think about where you are going to store it.  It is generally best to store a safe in the basement so that the safe doesn’t fall through the floor in the event of a fire or natural disaster.  That could be dangerous and it could also damage the safe and prevent it from doing its duty.

2-     It is wise to store your important items in a Ziploc bag, or something else watertight.  It would be a major disappointment to have your important documents make it through the fire and get ruined by the water from the firemen’s’ hoses.

3-     Make sure your safe has been tested and will withstand a fire.  Make sure that your safe has a UL fire rating of 350.  Fun fact-Paper burns at about 400 degrees.  If you plan on storing computer stuff-disks, flash/thumb drives, etc, you’ll wan a safe rated at 125.  

4-     Think long term.  You’ll be bummed if you buy a safe that is too small to hold everything you would like to store.  You don’t want to have to buy a new safe in a few years because you skimped on size the first time around.  A lot of folks like storing their jewelry, firearms and ammunition, family heirlooms and cash and coin collections as well.  Safes are a great place for these items.

5-     Remember to give someone you trust an extra key or the combination to the lock so that if something were to happen to you, they can access the items in the safe.

6-     Consider pricing carefully.  With safes it is generally true that you get what you pay for.  You don’t want to pinch pennies to protect vital information and expensive valuables.