Securing a home safe can be done by bolting it to the floor. However, if you’d rather not risk potential damage, you can still secure your home safe with polymer glue, and even by carefully choosing what you store in the safe.
Safes are the best pieces of equipment to keep any valuables or deeply personal items secure from potential intruders or others who shouldn’t have access to your safe’s contents.
Although most safes, are extremely reliable at protecting your belongings, if your safe itself isn’t secured to something, it won’t matter how well it can protect what’s inside because someone can just run off with the entire safe.
Read on to learn more about how to secure your safe and, in turn, its contents.
This article will discuss the pros and cons of bolting your safe to the floor, safe bolting alternatives, as well as the best ways to hide your safe in plain sight, and where to put it in an apartment.
Should I Bolt My Safe To The Floor?
One of the best ways to secure your safe and its contents would be to bolt the safe to the floor. Whether or not you bolt your safe to the floor is entirely up to you, but ultimately, this is the most highly recommended method of securing your safe.
One factor that might affect your decision to bolt your safe is the flooring in your home.
If you have a concrete floor, either in a basement or underneath the wood or tile on your ground floor, you should definitely bolt your safe here.
Concrete is incredibly sturdy, and once you’ve bolted the safe, it won’t be worth the trouble to steal.
Homeowners who don’t have any concrete on their property most likely have plywood flooring.
This isn’t the ideal choice for bolting as someone could rip the safe out of the floor with enough effort, but it’s better to take the precaution than to leave the safe unsecured.
In cases such as this, Maximum Security Safes recommends getting a safe weighing at least 450 pounds.
Therefore, even if criminals pry the bolts from the floor, they’ll have a tough time stealing the safe because of its weight.
If you’re on the fence regarding the benefits of bolting your safe to the floor, here are some reasons this is the optimal choice.
Deters and delays criminals – If someone breaks into your house and sees a safe, they immediately know you went as far as investing hundreds, or possibly thousands of dollars on this piece of equipment.
Therefore, whatever is inside must be pretty valuable.
An experienced burglar will know that when it’s upright, it is nearly impossible to pry open a safe door.
But, if they can tip the safe onto its side, they may be able to pry it open using the leverage of their body weight and a quality pry bar.
However, once you bolt the safe down, this no longer becomes an option.
Prevents accidents and damage – Tipping a safe over doesn’t just help criminals; it is a huge risk to your safety and the safety of others.
A tiny safe might only weigh 6-10 pounds, but if you have a larger, higher quality safe, its weight could easily range from 90 to over 250 pounds.
A high-end commercial-grade gun safe can even weigh anywhere between 2,000 to 5,000 pounds.
That amount of weight tipping over is no joke. Imagine 2,000-pound safe tipping over onto your foot or knocking you to the ground.
Not only could equipment of this size and weight seriously injure you or others in your home, it could also cost you a pretty penny in damages.
Many people will keep their safe on a concrete floor in their basement, but it isn’t uncommon to place them in the master bedroom, a man cave, or other personal rooms in the home.
If a safe tips over here, not only will it most likely damage the floor and anything around it, but it could also damage your walls and any plumbing or electric wires within.
You’ve already spent enough on the safe – don’t make it cost you more by not bolting it down.
Inhibits grab and go’s – I’ve discussed how heavy safes can be, but still – with the proper equipment and determination, a criminal could simply take your unbolted safe “to go.”
They might not know the safe’s contents, but they undoubtedly would know that with enough trial and error or some advanced tools, they’ll get your safe open one way or another.
The easiest way to prevent this is simple. Bolt it down.
How To Secure A Safe Without Bolting It To The Floor
Bolting a safe to the floor will certainly help keep the safe secure, but sometimes this isn’t an option.
If you’d rather refrain from bolting your safe to the floor or you don’t have an ideal location to do this, here are some alternatives:
- Bolt the safe into a raised concrete platform.
- Bolt the safe into a sturdy shelf if it is a light-weight safe.
- Bolt the safe into a large and heavy steel slab.
- Place weights into the safe amongst your belongings to make it heavier.
- Use high-strength polymer glue to glue the safe to the floor.
How To Hide A Safe In Plain Sight
Sometimes, the best method of protection for your safe and its contents is clever concealment.
Hiding your safe is a great tactic to ensure its safety because it won’t be in plain sight to tempt criminals.
Plus, even if criminals or household members know about the safe, they’ll have to go on a scavenger hunt to find it.
Listed below are our top five recommendations for hiding your safe in plain sight:
- Have a contractor or safe company build you a wall safe that you can easily conceal with artwork, drapery, or cover with heavy furniture.
- Have a contractor build a faux wall you can hide your safe behind.
- Hide your safe under the floorboards. This works exceptionally well for small, light-weight safes.
- Hide your safe in clutter. If you have a basement, attic, crawlspace, or cluttered closet, try placing a large cardboard box over your safe labeled something mundane like “winter clothes,” then pile surrounding clutter on top.
- Hide your safe in the space behind an inward swinging door of an unassuming room. This forces the intruder to enter the room and close the door before they can see the safe. Don’t try this in your bedroom or man cave. If you have a pantry or entertainment room with a door like this, they are great options.
Where To Put A Safe In An Apartment
Hiding and securing a safe in an apartment can be tough because, ultimately, you don’t own that property.
Taking precautions like bolting the safe to the floor could result in you losing your security deposit from property damages.
Luckily, there are a few clever places you can put your safe in almost any apartment where it will be secure.
Before getting into the best safe locations, let’s talk about the one place you should absolutely never put your safe: your bedroom.
If your apartment also has a bathroom or closet in your main bedroom, these are out of the question as well.
FBI burglar statistics show that after a burglar has broken into a home, they are only inside for an average of 8-10 minutes.
Therefore, with such limited time, the first place their going to rob is the main bedroom, bathroom, and closet.
They know this is where people keep most of their valuables such as jewelry, money stashes, and electronics.
The best thing you can do with your limited apartment space is to not fall into this trap.
That being said, some of the best places to store your safe in an apartment include:
- Bolted to the wall in a closet (with your landlord’s permission). Burglars will likely check here, but the bolts will help deter them from trying to take the safe.
- In a vent (those located near the ceiling are best).
- In plastic storage bins. If these bins have decorations inside, all the better. Hide your safe amongst the clutter.
- Under your kitchen sink. Again, your apartment is likely small, so any closet or cabinet will most likely be searched. If the space under your sink is large, bolt the safe to a steel slab that can’t be easily maneuvered out of the space.
- Buy a dresser or shelf with a false top or bottom where you can store a small safe.
- Store it in the ceiling. Some apartments have moveable/replaceable ceiling tiles. Simply pop one up, store your safe, and move the tile back.
- Hide it in the freezer. Not the ideal thing you want taking up valuable food space, but if you have a second, less frequently use fridge or freezer, or you have room to spare in your main one, hide your safe behind other food items.
With such limited time, most burglars will snag the most valuable things in sight rather than searching for 10+ minutes, hoping to find a safe.
The best thing you can do in an apartment is not to leave the safe in plain sight.
Also refrain from hiding it in commonly searched places, such as cabinets and closets, unless you’re adding an extra security measure.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of ways to secure your home safe, including bolting it to the floor.
If you’d rather choose a less permanent but equally effective method to securing your home safe, some of the methods above should help you do just that.
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