Fireproof safe

Jan 11, 2008 36 Replies

Floors and ceilings mostly. Although we build walls in masonry, we tend to use suspended wooden floors rather than poured concrete slabs. This is one reason why we popularly DIY install floorsafes, not wall safes (other way round to the USA). Also drywall cladding is needed for any penetration of the bricks, including around plumbing.

So when your adjacent garage / workshop roof leaks, there's a few inches of rockwool to soak up the insulation, then a few layers of plasterboard. By the time you even notice, it's a right old nasty mess up there. Guess what tomorrow's job is? 8-(

If you have a _major_ fire in a UK house, it's almost always because the fire has got into a roof or ceiling void and then spread that way. Room fires are generally survivable (if you're elsewhere and leave), multi-room fires are the ones that kill families (we've had a bunch of them lately).

Yep ranks right behind the subject of "2 phase motors".

I've already worked that one to death. They see me coming when I have a stack of phase diagrams in my hand.

-- Ed Huntress

It wouldn't 'Phase' me! ;-)

Two demerits for that one.

-- Ed Huntress

No thanks, I've already got thousands of them! ;-)

I got most of the demerits for clearing out the entire engineer department at Microdyne, simply by marching in with a blank sheet of copier paper, and a very pissed look on my face. They 'Phased out' very quickly! ;-)

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:37:24 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth:

Sounds duplicitous.

----------------------------------------------- Never attempt to traverse a chasm in two leaps. ===============================================

Right. The Chinese make them. They're known as Yin/Yang motors.

-- Ed Huntress

Thanks for all of the enthusiastic replies. I never would have thought of drywall on the outside. Cheaper and easier than re-lining for sure.

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:12:19 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, "John L. Weatherly" quickly quoth:

There is a newer style of drywall which is more impervious to fire, fungus, mold, termite, and water damage.

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've never seen any locally.

When my CA home was infested with termites, they ate the wallpaper and paper covering on the drywall, leaving exposed gypsum. I couldn't believe it. This stuff should be safe from that.

--- Chaos, panic, and disorder--my work here is done.

The drywall / gypsum contains water, chemically combined in. In case of fire, it releases the water, helping hold the temperature down.

Fire resistant safes just buy some time for the FD to get there and put out the fire.

messagenews:FqSdnW8YSO2hBBranZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@cavtel.net...

My theory in the firesafe is to put it in a place where the house collapses on it and chokes itself of air to burn

IF the unthinkable happens me and my sawzall know which corner of the house to work through to get the truly critical documents and we will expect it to be buried under mainly inflammable debris so its almost surrounded by tile and drywall and the house could collapse on it and not throw burnable materials onto it

Will the moisture contained in the drywall change the humidity in the safe? I don't like rusty firearms...

Yes. Mine came with some kind of a special cloth that you are supposed to keep in there that is supposed to somehow help the problem. My papers always smell musty when I take them out of the safe. Perhaps they make gun safes differently?

Vaughn

Only in case of fire. Other than that, the gypsum is rather dry stuff.

Try using silica gel dessicant packs in your safe with the papers?

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