How to choose the correct safe?

Safes are available in a range of different sizes from 100’s of different brands so it is understandable that the purchase of a safe can sometimes become confusing. This guide has been put together to help make the purchase a lot easier and explain why there is so many safes to choose from in today’s market.

Safes are like cars in the sense they have a range of different manufactures that all supply safes that offer similar specification at different costs. Chubb Safes is the leading brand in Europe and manufacture safes at an extremely high quality. When choosing a brand, customers usually decide on a brand that sells a safe at the nearest dimensions to suit their needs.

Locking Options

There are four types of locking on safes in today’s industry and these are key locking, electronic locking, combination locking and biometric locking. Key and electronic locking are the two most common types of locking on safes and neither can be recommended as more secure than the other. Most reputable safe companies recommend the choice of key or electronic locking should come down to the user’s personal preference as some people prefer to carry a key, while others prefer to remember a code.

While key and electronic locking still remain the most common types of locking in the industry today there has been a large growth in biometric locking and combination locking over the last 3 years.

Biometric locking is often referred to as fingerprint locking and allows users to open the safe by placing their finger on the lock of the safe. The advantage of fingerprint technology is that users don’t need to worry about carrying a key or needing to remember a code. Biometric locking is normally a lot more expensive than the standard key or electronic locking, but brands such as Burton and Phoenix are now starting to introduce cheaper versions of these safes.

Cash/ Valuable Ratings

Many years ago safe companies started introducing cash and valuable ratings on their safes. When searching for a safe the customer must make sure they know exactly what amount of cash and valuables they need the safe to protect. Cash ratings usually start at £1,000 and normally go up £250,000. The valuables rating is always valued 10 times more than the cash rating.

Below is a table with a full list of all cash and valuables ratings.

Fire Safes

Fire safes have seen a large growth over the last few years with the advancements in data and media in small businesses. Standard fire safes will give protection to paper only with ranges from 30 minutes to 120 minutes depending on the thickness of the walls.

Fire data safes are designed for storing data including media and hardware, but please be aware when purchasing a data safe that internal space is significantly decreased because of the thickness of the walls. Fire safes always come fitted with electronic locking and range from cheap budget safes to high security eurograde safes.