A home safe: which one to choose and where to install it

Home safes are booming — papers, jewellery, crypto wallets, firearms with legal storage duties — and the market has never been more confusing. Start from the end: what goes inside? Documents call for volume and FIRE resistance (a separate certification — many burglar-proof safes offer none); valuables call for burglary grades your insurer will read; firearms carry legal storage obligations; digital media need fire and humidity protection.

Certification: what "safe" legally means — nothing

The word is unprotected: the 10 kg sheet-metal box and the 300 kg certified safe share it. The objective reference is EN 1143-1, grading safes (0, I, II…) after laboratory attack tests. The practical stake is insurance: each grade carries a ceiling of insurable values — roughly €8,000 at grade 0, €25,000 at grade I, more above (each policy states its figures). Below sit EN 14450 "security cabinets" (S1/S2): fine for organisation, insufficient to insure valuables.

Wall, free-standing or floor

Wall safes hide well but limit volume and demand a suitable wall. Free-standing safes are the versatile standard — on the absolute condition of chemical anchoring into concrete: an unanchored safe under 1,000 kg is luggage with handles. Floor safes resist extraction best under a trap. Placement is free security: burglars search the master bedroom, dressing room and study first — an anchored safe in the utility room adds precious minutes to their clock. And the golden rule: the fewer people know a safe exists, the better it works (unmarked vehicle on request).

The lock

Key (robust, but where do you hide the key?), mechanical dial (indestructible, slow), electronic keypad (today's standard — changeable codes, multi-user; mind the battery warnings), biometric (comfort, on serious ranges doubled by code or key). Always verify the emergency opening and how it works.

Budget

The six mistakes we see monthly

The unanchored safe; the too-small safe (buy double your current need); the factory code never changed; the "hidden" safe in the master bedroom; the emergency key in the next drawer; the grade mismatched to the insurance policy. Each is avoided in one conversation — the free advisory visit exists for exactly that. Keep invoice and certificate with your insurance papers, NOT inside the safe, and a copy elsewhere: proving the safe's existence to the assessor is the one job it cannot do for itself. Lost the code one day? We open non-destructively whenever the mechanism allows — bring proof of your right to the safe, a request that protects you as much as us.