Home Safe Reviews and Buying Guide:

Ever thought about buying a home safe? Purchasing a safe for your home, office, or business makes sense if you have valuables that you want to protect. For instance, your wife may have lots of jewelry you want to store in a home safe or you may want to keep money, gold, business documents, or family heirlooms safe from potential thieves. One of the most common types of home safes are those for guns and firearms. Choosing the right safe for your home or business is not that easy since there are so many varieties and features you can pick. We suggest that you first decide what it is that you will be storing in the safe so that way you can determine the proper size you'll need. Some safes are built into walls or floors, so you'll need to consider a room that could accommodate that style if you so choose. What features do you want in your safe? Keep reading below to see our buying guide.

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There are 4 basic types of safes - wall safes, gun safes, in-floor safes, and general safes. For most homeowners, a basic safe is all you need since they are built to protect your valuables and can be located almost anywhere in your home. Try to find one that is heavy enough that if a robber were to enter your house and try to get away with it, the weight may deter them from trying to carry it away. A wall safe is the best choice for those that want to hide the safe from any potential thief. Wall safes can be installed quite easily in homes or businesses and they can be placed in concrete or wood walls. To hide the wall safe, just cover it with a mirror or picture and instantly you have a hidden safe. Wall safes come in a variety of depths, so make sure your wall space can handle the model you choose. Gun safes are highly recommended for anyone who owns firearms. Keep your guns and pistols safe from children and strangers who might be curious. In-floor safes are a creative way to store and protect your valuables. The safe will be installed right into your floor and submerged below the floor level. Cabinets or rugs are the perfect way of disguising the location of an in-floor safe. The locking mechanisms on safes are offered in 3 ways - key locks, electronic locks, or combination locks. Key locks are the most basic and probably all you need in most cases. Keep an extra set of keys around in case you lose the first set and never store the safe keys near the safe. Combination locks are better in terms of security than key locks since it is possible for someone to pick a key lock. Combination locks usually require you to turn a dial and enter 3 or 4 numbers in order to open the safe. You can get a safe with both a key lock and combination lock combined. Electronic locks on safes are the best (besides fingerprint locks) and work great if more than one person will be accessing the safe. Fire resistant safes are definitely the way to go in case of a fire. Keep in mind that the insulation materials will differ on fire safe safes depending on the contents you will be storing. Impact resistant safes are also available in case your safe has something fall on it. Water resistance is another feature to consider when looking at safes. In case of a flood or a fire (the firefighters will be dowsing the flames with water), you would want a safe that resists water or liquids. The top brands in home safes are American Lock, Cannon Safes, Fire Fyter, FireKing, Gardall Safes, Gun Vault, Honeywell, MasterLock, Schwab, and Sentry. We went online to find the most popular and top rated home safes on the market. The top 2 sites for safes are Buyasafe.com and Everysafe.com. Prices range from around $100 to $1300 for quality home safes. For shopping online, we also recommend Amazon.com for their excellent shipping and customer service. They don't carry the huge, heavy safes, but they carry a variety of smaller models, including many Honeywells. You can browse their list of best-selling safes here.

Best Home Safe:

Protex is one of the main supplier of safes for hotels, motels, and sports clubs. You have probably seen one of their safes in a hotel room or used one yourself. The HD-100 PROTEX Fire Resistant Burglary Safe ($795) is the ideal home safe with 5 active chrome locking bolts, 30 minutes of fire protection, a velvet lined interior (keep jewelry from scratching), and an electronic keypad for quick programming and access. The Protex comes with pre-drilled anchor holes at the bottom if you want to attach this monster to your floor, but at 256 pounds it is not necessary. Only an incredibly strong or resourceful thief will make it out of your house with safe. The solid steel plated door is 5/16" thick and the interior offers over 5 cu. ft. capacity. There are 4 interior shelves so you can organize your valuable anyway you like. Protex makes home security safes in all sizes and they provide dial combination locks, electronic locks, and fingerprint locks for the highest security possible. You can see more of their line of products online at Protexsafe.com. Owners say they are easy to use and hold money, coins, jewelry, and all-size documents.

Wall Safe:

Wall safes, like in-floor safes are a major commitment depending on where you put them. A floor safe must always be covered and a wall safe once put into a wall will look awkward if taken out. Another thing to consider is how deep you will need your wall safe to be. Not all walls will extend back far enough, so you may need a safe that is taller versus being deep. Ultimately, a built-in wall safe should have a mirror, picture or piece of furniture in front of it to help conceal its location. To install a wall safe you have to cut a hole in the wall between studs, then insert the safe and bolt it into the studs from the inside -- there has to be enough space behind the wall for it to fit, so a wall that backs to closed off attic space or something works best, though many compact models are meant to fit into just the several inches of space in a standard wall. The Honeywell - Digital Anti-Theft Safe ($89) is an incredible value and offers more than 1 cubic feet of space. The Honeywell wall safe is virtually burglar resistant with a re-programmable digital electronic locking mechanism. Solid steel construction, concealed hinges, insulated walls make this a well built wall safe that is a top seller on several websites. Requires both a key and combination to open it for double protection. Great place to store your jewelry, important documents, or money. The Gardall Concealed Wall Safe ($185) is meant for commercial as well as home use. It's 4 inches deep and will hold all your valuables. Gardall safes are heavy-duty in construction and have excellent reliability records. You can find out more about their products online at Gardall.com. On the site you can download a PDF file of their newest catalog.

Gun Safe:

There is no more important a reason to own a safe than if you have a gun. Safes designed to hold firearms will save lives. We hear stories on the news all the time where a child went into their parents gun drawer and pulled out a pistol only to accidentally shoot their friend or sibling. These are senseless deaths that can be avoided if gun owners would simple buy a gun safe and store all their firearms in it (locked of course). The amount of guns you need to put into your gun safe will most likely determine what size you get. With only a single hand gun in the house, consider the Mini-Vault Deluxe Quick Access Gunsafe ($150) from GunVault. Keypad entry (even in the dark), motion sensor alarm and interior light. If you have multiple guns the Winchester Gun Safe WP-5523 ($1100) may be the solution. Has 4 interior shelves for safe storing and 4 anchor holes that are pre-drilled on the bottom if you want to permanently position this gun safe. This heavy-duty gun safe weighs 325 lbs and has a fire rating of 1200 degrees fahrenheit for 32 minutes. The electronic keypad takes up to a 6 digit code and is easy to program.

In-Floor Safe:

An in-floor safe is great for those looking to make their safe invisible to burglars and thiefs. Easy to hide under carpet or furniture, the floor safe will protect your assets. Again, size is a critical factor in determing the cost. You can get a Gardall - Square Tube In-Floor Safe for $275 and comes in small or medium sizes. The pyramid shape lets you secure it to the floor nicely and the door has no hinge on it. Your lock options include a mechanical combination lock or an electronic punch-buttom lock. The Cobalt Floor Safe FS-B1 ($500) is nicer than the Gardall and offers more interior room (7" x 11" door clearance). The door is 1/2 solid steel and the body is 1/4" solid steel. Comes with a combination lock, spring loaded door, and weighs a solid 113 pounds. Floor safes are great for smaller items, but rarely will you see an in-floor safe that will hold large valuables (they're just not convenient).

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