Safe vs. Vault Door?

[Trigger Time]

If im going for deception and hiding a room it wouldnt be through a safe that any half way smart thief is going to try and knock over to open or at least start trying to pry it off of the wall to move to tip and get a prybar into.

 

[ws6duramax]

I did my vault for a couple reasons . One was I was tired of banging guns against each other in a full safe . Nothing was ever easy to get to and that always pissed me off .

The other was , we were already having everything under the porch poured for a tornado / shelter room. It was simple just to add a door . It's a large room , roughly 10x40 , so I can use it a multitude of things .

I set mine up similar to gun store . Everything is on a shelf , standing up . Easy to get to and all my ammo is stored on shelves on the bottom . Kinda looks like my local Bass Pro . If I had to do it all over, I don't think I changed a thing.

 

[ws6duramax]

I did keep a small safe upstairs in the master bedroom . Just so I had something available in a hurry if needed .

 

[GrinderCB]

Another thing to consider, if you move you can take the safe with you.
Ideally, I'd like to have both. Vault door for the room because my reloading stuff is also in the same area, and safe for the guns.

A gun room with a vault door would be a pretty good selling point in a house, especially if it were properly equipped not just for security against theft, but also against damage. That said, if you go that route I'd make certain it was properly ventilated and equipped with dehumidifiers. Remember, guns have only two enemies - rust and politicians. We talk enough about politicians. One of the biggest problems I've heard of over the years with regard to basement storage is keeping out moisture.

 

[JettaKnight]

I just found another reason a vault room is better than a floor safe -

Hanging meat!


I've got guanciale now, and soon pancetta.

 

[alanbarx]

For me it is a SAFE, why? Because it can be moved if need be. Vault door? It can't be moved. I am just seein things from different angles.

 

[rotag84]

Years ago when I had no money and lived in a house I didn't have a safe so I hid my guns behind the paneled walls in the basement. Not ideal but beat stuffing them in closets and under beds.

 

[Bphelps100]

I’d have a construction company come in and build an additional room and have concrete walls poured with rebar reinforcements and a vault door. That’s if money isn’t an issue. Also make sure they sign a NDA

 

[Mgderf]

I’d have a construction company come in and build an additional room and have concrete walls poured with rebar reinforcements and a vault door. That’s if money isn’t an issue. Also make sure they sign a NDA

This is more or less what we did. Not to my house, but for a customer. Blocked off a corner in a basement with concrete blocks lined with rebar and poured full.
We then drywalled to outside of the wall so that it looks like every other wall in the house.

Materials (including vault door) and labor, came to roughly $65,000.
The shelving inside was finished in red oak and red and black velvet, with red Berber carpet on the floor.
It had enough rack space for 270 long guns when we finished, but we were called back and added another 150 spaces for long guns, and shelving for handguns.
Heat and A/C were ducted in to keep climate controlled.

Incredibly expensive, but Haley's Lock, Safe, and Keys told me it was the nicest vault set-up they had seen.
That made my day!

 

[BE Mike]

This is more or less what we did. Not to my house, but for a customer. Blocked off a corner in a basement with concrete blocks lined with rebar and poured full.
We then drywalled to outside of the wall so that it looks like every other wall in the house.

Materials (including vault door) and labor, came to roughly $65,000.
The shelving inside was finished in red oak and red and black velvet, with red Berber carpet on the floor.
It had enough rack space for 270 long guns when we finished, but we were called back and added another 150 spaces for long guns, and shelving for handguns.
Heat and A/C were ducted in to keep climate controlled.

Incredibly expensive, but Haley's Lock, Safe, and Keys told me it was the nicest vault set-up they had seen.
That made my day!

Didn't you make a reinforced ceiling for the vault? I would think that otherwise someone could just cut a hole in the floor above and take the guns.

 

[JettaKnight]

Didn't you make a reinforced ceiling for the vault? I would think that otherwise someone could just cut a hole in the floor above and take the guns.

At $65K, I'm going to assume that it had a concrete ceiling.

 

[TolusD]

I'm working on my vault room now and my primary defensive measure is the overlapping solar powered cameras covering the exterior of my house. There's no way to disable them without being recorded on them. They have internal storage and they upload to the cloud in real time so there's no way you can come and go without being caught on camera from multiple angles. Past that there's a dedicated camera slaved to my alarm system that's inside the vault room. It can only be disarmed from my phone or from the panel by the front door and only then if you enter a secondary code specifically for that camera.

Any safe or vault can be breached. It's just a matter of time. Even something with reinforced block walls can be breached with a sledgehammer and a reciprocating saw in a couple of minutes. My plans are based on active deterrence and layered defenses that buy enough time for me to act on the information that I'm being fed by the system. If my cameras go off and then the alarm, the cops are already on the way and I can call the dispatcher and let them know exactly what escape vehicle to look for, how many trespassers there are, where they are in the house, and if they made it into the vault or not.

And as far as insurance goes, I have my firearms scheduled and I get a nice discount for having a vault room, cameras, and a monitored alarm system.