Specs on Fire - Choosing a Fireproof Safe for your home or office

[caption id="attachment_411" align="alignleft" width="300"]Fireproof safes protect documents as well as more sensitive digital media data safe from house fires or fires in the workplace. Fireproof safes protect documents as well as more sensitive digital media data safe from house fires or fires in the workplace.[/caption]

With a wealth of important documentation and data, it’s no wonder that so many businesses opt for a fireproof safe. But did you know that you had more than enough reason to choose a fireproof safe for your home?

From passports and birth certificates to removable hard drives full of photos and media, the modern homestead is teeming with extremely important and highly flammable products.

Fireproof safes are considered so important that many insurers now insist that companies or homeowners choose a fireproof safe. With that mind, we’ve written a basic introduction to fireproof safes; explaining more about the types of fireproof safe available, the way they are tested and the companies that do them best.

Choosing the best fireproof safe for your needs requires an idea of what exactly you are hoping to store; be it data or documentation.

Our homes are full of important documents, including passports, birth certificates and even the deed to the home itself. These items might not be attractive to a thief, but they should be safeguarded because of their importance to you. Of course, keeping these items in a fireproof safe won’t simply keep them out of harm’s way. It will allow you to be more organised than ever before. After all, you’ll always know exactly where your documents are. You’ll never lose your passport again.

Data is the new valuable. With memory cards and hard drives storing everything from music and photos to important files, losing them in a fire could be devastating. If you’re about to finish the novel you’re writing on evenings and weekends, only to lose the lot, you’re likely to give up a lucrative writing career before it even begins. In addition to memory devices, the data in your safe could include laptops, cameras, tablets and more. These items aren’t only at threat of fire but burglary. Thankfully there are a number of safes on the market to keep them safe from both.

The step when choosing a fireproof safe is to make sure it’s big enough for whatever you plan to keep inside. Both fireproof safes and filing cabinets are available. Making sure that the safe you choose accommodates the dimensions of your items. It goes without saying, if they don’t fit, they’re not safe. But there are other criteria to consider as well.

Insurance companies will only agree to cover the cost of your contents provided your safe is certified to a certain level. Fireproof safes are certified to offer from 30 or 60 to 120 minutes fire protection.

For homesteads in which the resident is regularly on the premises throughout the night, 30 to 60 minutes fire protection is considered adequate. Many businesses opt for 120 minutes.

Both media and document safes and filing cabinets are tested to pan-European standards, which are listed as follows:

  • EN15659 LFS 30P: 30 minutes fire protection for paper at temperatures of up to 900oC
  • EN15659 LFS 60P: 60 minutes fire protection for paper at temperatures of up to 900oC
  • EN1047 60D: 60 minutes fire protection for data/computer media at temperatures of up to 900ºC.
  • EN1047 60D: 90 minutes fire protection for data/computer media at temperatures of up to 900ºC.
  • EN1047 60D: 120 minutes fire protection for data/computer media at temperatures of up to 900ºC.

There are a number of respected manufacturers of fireproof safes, perhaps none more so than Phoenix Safes. Established in Liverpool in 1799, Phoenix are one of the leading brands in the security industry; and currently offer a number of top fireproof safes. The Phoenix Titan II is a bestselling fire safe, available in a number of sizes. This brilliant safe offers up to 60 minutes fire protection and also boasts a cash rating of £2,000 in the event of a theft.

In addition to a range of fireproof safes and file cabinets, the company offers the Phoenix Fire Chest, a small highly portable carry case designed to offer up to thirty minutes fire protection; perfect for keeping a cache of important items safe in the event of a fire.