How to make safes safer.

Fire safes have a layer of insulation (preferrably water saturated) between the inner and outer walls. Tamperproof safes also have a layer of wire reinforced concrete between the insulation and the outer steel jacket (to defeat drilling). So you could put the safe in a welded steel box with a concrete layer and an insulating layer. But you still have an uninsulated door, and a lock mechanism which is easily defeated.

Since you can buy a decent Sentry fire safe for $130 at places like Sears and Walmart, I can't see spending a lot of time and effort on this HF safe.

Gary

try putting it inside a TRTL30x6.

Who in the world told you that?

Conrete does not make a safe burglary resistant.

The following will give you a general idea. When they say "steel door", they mean _solid_ steel (not including insulation). They also don't go into things like hard plate, ball bearings, relockers, glass activated relockers, thermal relockers, deadlocking relockers, manipulation resistant locks, spy-proof dials, etc.

(I cut an pasted this from another website)

Construction Ratings

B Rated - Steel, doors less than 1 inch thick, walls less than 1/2 inch thick.

C Rated - Steel, doors at least 1 inch thick, walls at least 1/2 inch thick.

E Rated - Steel, doors at least 1 1/2 inches thick, walls at least 1inch thick.

ER Rated - Safe or chest labeled with: "UL Inspected Tool Resisting Safe TL

15 Burglary"

F Rated - Safe or chest labeled with: "UL Inspected Tool Resisting Safe TL

30 Burglary" or "UL Inspected Torch Resisting Safe TR 30 Burglary" or "UL Inspected Explosive Resistant Safe with Relocking Device X 60 Burglary"

G Rated - Safe or chest labeled with: "UL Inspected Torch and Explosive Resisting Safe TX 60 Burglary" or "UL Inspected Torch Resisting Safe TR 60 Burglary" or "UL Inspected Torch and Tool Resisting Safe TRTL 30 Burglary"

Performance Ratings - Burglary Classifications

TL -15 Rating - Successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 15 minutes when attacked with common hand tools, picking tools, mechanical or portable electric tools, grinders, drills or pressure devices.

TL- 30 Rating - Successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 30 minutes when attacked with common hand tools, picking tools, mechanical or portable electric tools, grinders, drills or pressure devices.

TRTL - 30 Rating - Successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 30 minutes when attacked with common hand tools, picking tools, mechanical or portable electric tools, grinders, drills , pressure devices and oxy-fuel gas cutting or welding torches.

TRTL - 60 Rating - Successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 60 minutes when attacked with common hand tools, picking tools, mechanical or portable electric tools, grinders, drills , pressure devices and oxy-fuel gas cutting or welding torches.

TXTL - 60 Rating - Successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 60 minutes when attacked with common hand tools, picking tools, mechanical or portable electric tools, grinders, drills , pressure devices, explosives and oxy-fuel gas cutting or welding torches.

Performance Ratings - Fire Classifications

4 Hour Rating - Maintain an interior temperature of less than 150 degrees F and an interior humidity less than 85% when exposed to fire (up to 2000 F) for 4 hours.

3 Hour Rating - Maintain an interior temperature of less than 150 degrees F and an interior humidity less than 85% when exposed to fire (up to 2000 F) for 3 hours.

2 Hour Rating - Maintain an interior temperature of less than 150 degrees F and an interior humidity less than 85% when exposed to fire (up to 2000 F) for 2 hours.

1 Hour Rating - Maintain an interior temperature of less than 150 degrees F and an interior humidity less than 85% when exposed to fire (up to 2000 F) for 1 hour.

UL Labels

If a safe or chest bears the "Underwriters' Laboratories, Inc." , then it's model has been fully tested by this highly respected independent laboratory. On the UL label will be a complete performance coding. If your safe has an UL label, then you can be assured it meets or exceeds the standards set by Underwriter Laboratories, Inc.

hope this helps

Bobby

Now that's cute! And not a bad idea, either.

below) fire

away

from

be a hole lot easier to get your money back, add $200.00 and buy better fire resistant box. far as making it "hack-proof", forget it !!!

Nope.

So you could put the safe in

Concrete is lousy protection from drilling.

Actually a good idea when you modify it a little for fire protection by put a firesafe like a sentry inside a good burglary safe. Cheaper than a new equivelant burglary safe with fire protection as well.

Hmm. And if you put a "Media cooler" inside the fire chest inside the safe, you could provide real security for magnetic/optical/photographic media.

Of course each layer burns a lot of the storage space you paid for. Buying a single box designed to address the real problem may be cheaper per square foot of storage. But if you have mixed needs, it might almost make sense to go this route.

I agree with mr. bill, you'd have to put it inside of a real safe.

You could screw two hasps on the outside of the door, and put two big padlocks on.

That would help somewhat on the strength of the door. Now let's talk about the security of the padlocks/hasps.

Also it needs to be bolted securely to the frame or floor of the building, since it's small enough it could almost be put in a pocket :-). Actually this is probably a bigger vulnerability than the door strength.

Then there is the fire aspect - this safe doesn't mention any fire rating at all - so you'd to do something like put it inside a fire safe.

Perhaps I should have started by asking about what security is needed. This box, fastened down, and hidden away, is probably good for protection against the casual person who walks by - but offers only minimal protection against fire, and against an experience person who wants to penetrate it.

Better and much better are readily available, but cost more.