Secure your valuables against theft, fire, water and other threats. Get a safe that suits your needs. see the original article: http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/articles/types-of-safe-and-locking-mechanisms

1. Types of safes and locking mechanisms

2. Which one do you need amongst the different types of safes
available on the market?
Key considerations in buying the right investment to protect your
valuables are what you intend to put in it and the threats you
want to guard against e.g. burglars, fire, floods, heavy impact,
explosions.

3. Safes come with varying degrees of protection
and different features that make it suitable
for many uses from storing jewellery, coins,
cash notes, printed documents and memory
storage devices through to antiques,
silverware, paintings and many other items
of great personal and monetary value.

4. It’s also important to know where you intend to put it—in your
home, office or business; embedded into the floor, behind the
wall, bolted to a heavy object, or simply ‘camouflaged’ in plain
sight.

5. SAFES COME IN VARIOUS SIZES, SHAPES AND
FEATURES, BUT ARE GENERALLY CLASSIFIED INTO

6. 1. Home or residential safes

7. Fire safes
These are entry level safes you can easily find in your local home
improvement store. Its main purpose is to guard primarily
documents of extreme importance such as wills, vehicle and
property titles, stocks and bonds certificates, passports and
social security papers, etc. against the extreme temperatures
of fires.
There are different stages of protection offered by fire safes.
They are able to maintain a low enough temperature inside for
different amounts of time (depending on the model) by
releasing moisture into the safe.

9. Burglary safes
If you want a higher level of protection against burglars this type
of safe is ideal as it is heavier and has more sophisticated
locking mechanisms.
A security safe offers maximum security with its substantially
thick steel door and steel walls able to withstand the attacks of
even the more sophisticated and determined criminals.
Some models have an added fire protection feature, making
them hybrid burglar / fire safes. Depending on where you
intend to place them, they can be:

10. Standalone home safes. It is a versatile type of safe
you can put any place you like (just make sure you
have enough room to open the door fully!). They
can be mounted to the floor or bolted to another
heavy object, or just placed free-standing (their
immense weight deters burglars from simply carting
them away). It’s an ideal option if you want a more
mobile safe.

11. Wall safe. Talk about ‘blending into the background’. The safe is
built into the wall and covered up with a painting or furniture,
making it an inconspicuous way of hiding things. This popular
type of safe keeps criminals guessing its exact location
especially in a large room or house. It’s also very convenient
for homeowners since it’s placed in the wall so they don’t have
to stoop to use it.

12. Underfloor safe. They are embedded onto a
concrete floor, making them very much
immune to removal.
Its location can also be conveniently covered
up with a rug, mat, or carpet. If you don’t
plan on opening it for a very long time, you
can also put a bed or cupboard over it,
making it a lengthy affair for burglars to open
even if they knew its exact location.

13. Gun safes. It’s a necessary investment to
house your rare gun collection or even
just to keep it out of reach of active little
hands or off the hands of a curious
teenager. They come in various sizes (to
accommodate either long or short
firearms or both), strength of security
and resistance to fire.

14. Key safes. They are designed to securely store keys, ranging in size from
compact key safes storing one or a few keys through to larger solid
steel boxes holding a lot of keys with key tags to help organise its
contents.
Outdoor key safes are embedded into concrete or brick on the exterior of
a house or building and accessed with a combination code, which can
be easily changed to accommodate security needs.

15. Jewellery safes. If you prefer your expensive sparklers to be near
you instead of in a bank vault this is the way to go. Most
jewellery safes are well-designed, ornate boxes themselves
with beautiful wood and velvet interiors worthy of housing
your precious gems collection. As dainty as its interiors are, its
exterior is just as tough and difficult to crack.

16. 2. Business or commercial safes
Many of the types of home safe can be and are also used by
businesses.
However, there are other types more specific for business or
corporate usage owing to the much higher level of security
required by large organisations (e.g. storing important tax and
accounting documents, contracts, business plans, blueprints,
property titles, legal documents, as well as large volumes of
cash).

17. Office safes. It is a stronger and more secure than the typical
home safe. They are also usually fireproof, with much higher
fire ratings. Many models are drop tested to ensure they will
not unlock when dropped from a given height. In most cases
they are fitted with an electronic lock.

18. Hotel safes. These are provided by hotels to guests in
order to deposit their valuables during their stay.
They do not offer the strongest protection but are
much better than having important travel and
business documents and cash strewn about,
vulnerable to being misplaced, damaged or stolen.
They are usually mounted to the wall, and some
models automatically lock out in case of too many
attempts to open it.

19. Drop safes or deposit safes. They are used by businesses, banks,
postal offices and offices where quick secure deposits at
regular intervals are made without having to open the safe
door everytime. The item to be deposited is dropped onto a
small hatch at the top or front of the safe.
Drop / deposit safes are used to hold valuables temporarily until
they can be transferred to a bigger, permanent safe or
processed in some way.

20. Vault. Also known as a strongroom, it differs from a conventional
safe in that it is part of the building it is located in. The room is
closely guarded by a heavy, close fitting steel door and a
complex lock mechanism. While we usually associate it with a
bank, it is also built in buildings that house valuables such as
museums, grand hotels, rare books libraries and even some
government ministries.

21. Data safes. These are used to keep digital media. Fire resistant
data safes are designed especially to protect tapes, computer
media, external hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs and
negatives from extreme temperatures, magnetic fields, dust
and smoke.
The insulation on this type of safe is significantly thicker than a
safe intended for paper documents because the materials that
make up electronic media melt at lower temperatures
compared to paper. Its interior is also generally smaller.

22. SAFES ARE PROTECTED BY AN ARRAY OF LOCKING
DEVICES

23.  Key lock. With this type of lock, the safe opens with a key. It is ideal if you are prone
to forgetting number combinations.
 Dial combination lock. Safes with this type of lock require the user to dial a number
sequence to open it. It is ideal for those who tend to misplace their keys often.
Opening a conventional dial lock takes longer than an electronic lock.
 Electronic lock. Like a dial lock it also has a non-key entry feature where the user
can create a digital code and input it on a digital key pad and / or use a magnetic
card strip to open a safe.
It is very convenient because it does not take a lot of time to open, and is also ideal
for when several people need to use the safe without having more than one person
or all of them present at the same time to validate entry (although this is possible
for safes with bespoke locking mechanisms). If access should become
compromised, you can always programme a new code. Its sophisticated variants
utilise fingerprint or iris recognition technology and is considered very secure.

24. For all your Safe requirements, visit
http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/c/safes

25. CONTACT US
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