Ranking of home safes – find out which safe to choose?

You will find at least a few tips on how to choose the right home safe and what to look out for on our website, feel free to browse the 'Knowledge' section, but here we will focus on the specifics. Hence, the common elements of safes that a home safe should have, we will point out briefly in this text:

• A home safe should be made of robust materials. Steel body construction and steel doors are fairly obvious elements; but remember to avoid home safes the weight of which is suspect. A lightweight safe sounds quite tempting, but a quality home safe must not have empty spaces inside the body.

• The high security level of a safe is defined by burglary and/or fire resistance classes referring to European and Polish standards EN 14450 and EN 1143-1 and no others. Don't be fooled by general terms such as "resistant to burglary attempts" or "increased fire resistance". No certificate – no resistance.

• Select a home safe according to your needs. If it is to be used for storing documents, then consider fire-resistant models seriously. Conversely, a home safe that will hold cash or gold will require a heavier mass and a higher burglary resistance rating. Match the dimensions of the safe and its capacity not only for today, but think about the future.

• Choose the installation location well. Secure storage of valuables is not only about the safe, but also about its surroundings, including how it is mounted. A home safe must not interfere with your daily routine. A suitable location should not be in plain sight. Remember also that if you anchor the home safe to a floor or wall, no plumbing, water, electricity or gas lines can run through these areas. In principle, you can mount safes almost anywhere.

There is a popular term for home safes referred to as furniture safes. It indicates a safe that can easily fit into built-in furniture, a lightweight safe equipped with an electronic lock, most resembling a hotel safe. However, this is not a good safe for home if you want to secure valuables, important documents or cash. The term itself is also confusing, so we will divide home safes according to capabilities rather than semantics.

Burglar safes

Burglar-proof safes are basically any safes in which you can securely store valuables, and whose burglary resistance is confirmed by a certificate of at least S1 in accordance with EN 14450. S1 safes, however, are constructed from a single sheet of steel and are designed more for public units, where a safe is required by law and where no one can realistically expect a break-in attempt. For home, we strongly recommend models of burglar-proof safes in class I and above in accordance with EN 1143-1, where protection of the contents and valuables is provided by the multi-walled construction and significant own weight.

Fire resistant safes

These are products in which, in addition to anti-burglary features, there is also resistance to fire, of course confirmed by a certificate issued by an institution accredited in the European Union. Fireproof safes are especially worth choosing if you want to keep valuable documents, files of banknotes, securities or, for example, photographs in your home. Fire resistance classes expressed in minutes are available, from 30 to 120 minutes.

All right, but let's go back to the beginning. What are the best safes in several of the most popular categories?

Our ranking of home safes opens with the model that, over the years, has sold, rightly, in the highest number of units per year. This is the D 109-08: a relatively heavy safe for its dimensions, which boasts a combination of class I burglary protection and 60-minute fire resistance. This will protect valuable jewellery, documents or money against both theft and fire, while the safe's heavy weight and floor mounting will make it difficult to pick up and carry out.

Second in the list is the F 103-01 Blanco model, somewhat lighter and smaller, without the fireproof feature, but with a body without protruding elements such as hinges or a handle, which makes it easy to install in built-in furniture. This safe is worth choosing, especially if you want to anchor it to a wall instead of to the floor.

The podium is rounded off by the HTII 215-21 model, also compact and non-fireproof, but in burglary class II, so that at a size that is not too large, you have the option of storing jewellery, money or valuables of higher value. Such equipment will seriously protect against the theft of valuables at home, but will also be useful as a piece of office equipment.

Customers who need to store deposits of really high value, significant amounts of jewellery, watches, etc., may be interested in a more serious, more powerful and heavier safe, more reminiscent of cash-boxes than "hotel safes".

The list of larger sized safes opens with the bigger brother of the safe we know from the previous category, the D 109-05 model. Although the series is the same, here we have a product with a weight of over 300 kg and a capacity that can safely store 20 file binders.

If you don't want to give up fire protection but need a safe in a higher burglary resistance class, a good home safe can be found in the D 111 (burglary class II, fire resistance 60 minutes) and D 112 (also burglary class II, 120 minutes of fire protection) series. Here the best safes, if measured by popularity, are the D 111-02 and D 112-02 models respectively.

Next, we highly recommend safes in higher classes. If you are concerned about the secure storage of watches, coin collections or precious metal bars, then look for a good safe in classes III–V.

In these classes, the relatively compact models are:

• HTIII 315-21 (class III),
• HTIV 415-21 (class IV),
• HTV 515-01 (class V).

It is worth noting that from class IV upwards, you can buy any safe with a double electronic lock. In the lower classes, we also recommend buying a safe with a single electronic lock, possibly complete with an emergency key lock.

Notice that the weight of home safes increases with the burglary class. When buying a safe, make sure you can anchor it to the wall or floor. It is strongly recommended and indeed required that any safe weighing less than 1,000 kg is anchored to structural elements of a building.

For the most demanding customers, we have a proposal that no ranking takes into account. It is a safe in which we adapt almost every parameter, dimensions, safe interior, equipment and varnishing, to your individual needs.

We change the standard lacquering to matt or high gloss, so that the safe literally shines from the outside. We use reinforced hinges with decorative plugs. Not many people can boast of this type of safe at home.

We change the interior too – instead of raw steel sheet metal, we use high-quality materials such as veneer, alcantara, glass or stainless steel.

We adjust the optional accessories – if you want to keep watches in the safe, it would be a good idea to build watch winders inside.

We illuminate the whole thing, of course.

A definitive answer to the question of which safe is best is difficult to find. The best safes for one customer will not suit another. Therefore, if you have any doubts, and you value an individual approach, please feel free to contact our Sales Department. We will help you find the most optimal solution for your office or home.