What is the best jewelry safe for your home?
Founder of Luxe Safes Inc., a safe and vault company that specializes in manufacturing high security custom jewelry safes for homeowners
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Choosing the best jewelry safe for your home is not a one size fits all decision. Of course, burglary protection is the most important thing for all jewelry safes, but there are several factors to consider before choosing a jewelry safe that is best for you. It is usually a one-time purchase, so take a moment to answer what industry experts agree are the most important questions
There are many types of safes designed for protecting different things. If one safe could protect everything it would be ideal. In a jewelry store that can handle a six-foot safe that weighs over four thousand pounds it is simple. But this not the reality of jewelry safes for home, and this is also why misinformation about home safes is so prevalent.
The biggest falsehood about jewelry safes for home is regarding the need for fire protection. YOU DON’T. YOU NEED BURGLARY PROTECTION. You probably wonder why you can’t have both. You can…BUT you probably can’t. Let me explain.
Good quality jewelry safes that provide both burglary and fire protection weigh a lot and are usually too big and heavy for home deliveries and also cannot go up a flight of stairs. These are high security safes with UL burglary ratings of TL15 (Diamond Vault Plus) or TL30 (Diamond Vault Ultra) for jewelry businesses. Safes like this are made with composite materials that adds a tremendous amount of weight and has less capacity because of its thick walls. Safes with the same UL ratings can also be made of all steel to reduce the weight tremendously and add a lot of storage capacity (TL15 Gem Guard) and (TL30 Gem Guard Ultra).
Both types of safes get the same insurance coverage. The composite type costs much less to manufacture and therefore they are very popular for business but too big for homes.
Almost Never! This is the biggest misrepresentation in the industry. Most safes that carry this Residential Security Container (RSC ) rating do not provide good burglary protection because they do not have at least a ½” steel door and ¼” steel body which is the benchmark of a commercial quality safe. The rating itself stands for “security container” Not “security safe”. Look for the steel thickness not the RSC rating.
Are there any good quality jewelry safes for home that provide both burglary and fire protection?
There are some, but not many. The Fortress model is an example of a good quality jewelry safe that provides both burglary and fire protection (Fortress). For a safe to be considered commercial quality and strong enough to protect jewelry it must have at least a ½” steel door and ¼” steel body. Unfortunately, MOST home safes that offer burglary and fire protection do not have this amount of steel, because it is too costly to manufacture like this.
Even most gun safes have very little steel and should never be used for securing jewelry. You must make sure that the jewelry safe you purchase has enough steel or your valuables are at risk.
There is ONLY one reason…because they cost less to manufacture and can be offered for cheap online pricing. No matter what bells and whistles are offered as options, if the safe does not have at least a ½” steel door and ¼” steel body you should never use it for protecting jewelry, because it won’t.
See how easy it is to break into a common fire-resistant home safe.
Steel safes do not provide fire protection; they provide the best burglary protection for home safes (Jewel Guard).
For homeowners who would like to have some fire protection for items like documents and cash they can store it inside a fireproof document folder
which provides better fire protection than most fireproof safes. By doing this you can get the strength of steel for protecting jewelry while getting fire protection for the paper items and everything is secure in one safe.
Location often depends on the size of the safe, but easy access is important. Most jewelry safes are between 2-4 feet tall so they can easily be installed somewhere in a master bedroom closet. Even a larger safe can usually fit into a walk-in closet, and if a safe is selected while you are designing a closet the safe can be designed to fit and match the décor.
The type of lock is a consideration, but a high security digital lock is the best choice. This allows for very quick and easy access. An old-fashioned combination lock is another option, but it is rarely used for home safes because it is inconvenient. The worst lock for a jewelry safe is a biometric lock. This is a gadget lock often used for cheap hotel safes or novelty safes. A fingerprint lock is not even allowed by insurance companies to be used in jewelry stores and you should never use it for your jewelry safe.
Other options to consider have nothing at all to do with security but have a lot to do with the value of your jewelry safe. Jewelry interiors vary a lot in their quality and price. Mass produced jewelry drawers and inserts are made with cheap quality materials and poor craftsmanship, while artisan produced cabinetry is like artwork. Like everything else, you get what you pay for.
