Home Safes - Hidden or in full view?

An important part of choosing the right home safe for your needs is choosing the right location within your home, and this raises an additional question: do you hide your safe or keep it in full view?

A range of underfloor or hidden wall safes are now available, which can be disguised or hidden within a home or office environment, but many people still prefer a traditional home safe. There are pros and cons for each and ultimately, the choice comes down to personal preference.

There is a certain school of thought which suggests that proudly displaying a secure home safe will serve as a deterrent to any would-be thieves and burglars. Most are protected by key locks or electronic number pads, and would take too much time and effort to break into for it to be worth the risk.

On the flip side, however, some feel that having a home safe on display is not so much a deterrent as an advertisement. By protecting your valuables in plain sight, you’re effectively publicising the fact that you have valuables there to protect. This could encourage opportunistic thieves to try their luck, in spite of the fact that the odds would be stacked firmly against them.

Depending on which side of the debate you favour, you might prefer to choose a hidden safe solution. The most popular hidden safes include underfloor safes and hidden wall safes.

There are obvious benefits to choosing a safe which is out of sight. An integral wall safe or underfloor safe is completely invisible to those who aren’t aware it is there. This means that even in the unlikely event of a break in, any valuable stored within are likely to be completely overlooked.

But integral safes are a more limited solution, given that they are much more difficult to move. Regular home safes can be moved from one home to another with a minimum of fuss. But a safe that has been built into a wall or a hidden floor compartment must first be removed from its original placement, and if it is to be installed in a new home, this becomes a separate job. It might be that the safe is left behind, and another need be purchased.

It’s an interesting debate, and there really isn’t a single definitive answer. Thankfully there are plenty of home safes and hidden safes to choose from, so regardless of which side of the fence you land on, you’ll find a high quality safe which suits your needs.