Building an economical safe room

[wacki]

Ok, I have a buddy that owns an expensive gun collection. He wants to add a safe room into his soon to be built home but is reluctant to for a couple of reasons. The first is reselling the house. My argument is that he should just buy a vault door that is similar in size to a steel hurricane shelter door and then relabel it as a cellar or an emergency safe room. Or slap on a regular door when you move and call it a cellar.

The second is costs. Here I suggest he just put it in the basement and use two walls of the basement as 2 walls of the safe room. That way you only have to lay two extra walls of concrete. But what about the roof? Is it expensive to make a concrete roof? I assume the cheapest route would be to make a roof out of a layer of 10 gauge steel supported by wood beams/plywood. Since most safes are 12 gauge I would assume this roof would be more secure than your average safe. As long as the sheets are welded I don't see a problem. Thoughts about this? Fire resistance would kind of suck here but that could be fixed with a little rockwool. I'm not sure how to layer that though.


As far as vault doors these seem to be the most economical:

http://www.sportsmansteelsafes.com/defender.htm

Does this door really have 1" thick steel plating?

Armory Vault Door
80" x 30" x 6"
$1,799.95

* Department of Justice Comp.- 100% Made in USA
* 1" Comp Door (overall thickness 3 1/2")

 

[glockman19]

A steel roof 5/8" would be fine.

 

[Lucky]

I'm trying an experiment with plexi-glass. The stuff isn't steel, by any means, but it's strong, impact resistant, heat resistant, and cut resistant. It's slow to cut to size, but after that it can simply be screwed to the inside of whatever wall you reinforce. Right now i'm trying a project where I make a strong door simply by backing plywood with medium-thickness plexi.

 

[wacki]

*deleted*

 

[obxned]

I would think having a hurricane or tornado safe room would add value at resale.

 

[a1abdj]

Ok, I have a buddy that owns an expensive gun collection. He wants to add a safe room into his soon to be built home but is reluctant to for a couple of reasons. The first is reselling the house. My argument is that he should just buy a vault door that is similar in size to a steel hurricane shelter door and then relabel it as a cellar or an emergency safe room. Or slap on a regular door when you move and call it a cellar.

Gun owners are my most difficult customers. Just about every other type of collector realizes the benefits of spending money on the proper security, but many of the gun collectors expect us to pay them to take the big nasty safe off of our hands.

He is right that installing a permanent structure will be something that the new owners will have to deal with. I've installed many, and have never heard anyone complain.

Vault doors (even the light gun safe company ones) aren't really something that is easily installed, removed, and reinstalled. Its usually best to leave them behind and buy a new one when you move.

The second is costs. Here I suggest he just put it in the basement and use two walls of the basement as 2 walls of the safe room. That way you only have to lay two extra walls of concrete. But what about the roof? Is it expensive to make a concrete roof? I assume the cheapest route would be to make a roof out of a layer of 10 gauge steel supported by wood beams/plywood. Since most safes are 12 gauge I would assume this roof would be more secure than your average safe. As long as the sheets are welded I don't see a problem. Thoughts about this? Fire resistance would kind of suck here but that could be fixed with a little rockwool. I'm not sure how to layer that though.

Most of the installations I do use one additional wall, with the addition of a concrete ceiling. This is usually done under the porch area of the house, where it is already U shaped, and backfilled under normal circumstances.

The concrete roof does require a little more engineering than the walls, but most of the concrete guys are capable of it. Depending on the size of the room, you may need to use some prestressed panels, or an I beam.

10 gauge steel isn't going to stop a theif from getting in, and it probably wouldn't hold up a collapsing house in the event of fire. When we do steel plate roofs, we're using 1/2" plate. Concrete is cheaper.

We do use FEMA rated doors on some panic room installations. These doors will often cost $2,000 themselves. Labeling the doors will probably do little to add security. Most criminals know that valuables are locked up. If they encounter something locked, they'll assume there is something worth getting behind it.

As far as vault doors these seem to be the most economical:

http://www.sportsmansteelsafes.com/defender.htm

Does this door really have 1" thick steel plating?

No. That door is 1" total thickness. It is most likely 12 gauge (1/10") steel wrapped around 5/8" gypsum board.

This is pretty common in the gun safe industry. There are companies that build plate doors, but they run a little more than $1,700.

 

[MErl]

I've seen a couple where the "roof" was actually the front porch

 

[a1abdj]

This is an installation using the addition of one wall, and the roof being the porch.

 

[wacki]

cool pic. Just curious most of these vault doors seem to open out. Do any of them open in? If I had a safe room I would make sure I could open the door once the house fell down.

 

[Nikdfish]

If retro-fitting, you can get good strength & penetration resistance by using multple layers of plywood. If memory serves, by the time you get up to a 7 or 8 inch thickness you are looking a something that will pass the "2x4 cannon" test for projectile resistance. Add a layer of steel half way through if you want to give chain saws a hard time.

Nick

 

[a1abdj]

cool pic. Just curious most of these vault doors seem to open out. Do any of them open in? If I had a safe room I would make sure I could open the door once the house fell down.

Fort Knox builds gun room doors that swing in and out. Of all the residential work we do, we install more of these doors than any other. The price/quality/options/function/installation cost ratio of the Fort Knox doors tends to be a decent deal when considering some of the alternatives.

Most real vault doors open out. It is very rare to see an inswing burglary resistant door. It is also very rare to see a real safe that doesn't have external hinges. These tend to be two features seen commonly from gun safe manufacturers.

 

[Sir Aardvark]

I had a bad experience with Kevin at Sportsman Steel Safes about 5 years ago.

I decided to purchase another safe from them and all I got was lies and excuses.

I ordered the safe and was told that they had to manufacture it and that I would have it within 3 weeks. They billed my credit card immediately for this purchase. After 3 months of being told by Kevin that "I'll have it in 2 more weeks, I promise", I did a charge-back on my credit card and had my money refunded.

The funny thing was that 3 weeks after I cancelled my order and got my refund, a lady from Sportman Steel called and said "Your safe is ready to pick up now". I told her what a joke her company was and that I had already got a refund from the credit card company. She sounded pissed-off (not at me, but at Kevin); I don't know if Kevin is married or not, but, I was thinking it was his wife - I can't see a normal employee being that upset about things.

I had purchased a safe from Sportsman Steel back in the early '90's when I'm assuming Kevin's dad use to run the company - the hinge pin for the door actually fell out of one of the hinges when I was installing it in my home. Someone forget to put some weld into the bottom of the hinge to keep the pin in there. I brought the safe back and actually got a really good deal on a more expensive safe - no problem with the customer service then (although poor quality control).

I have seen 4 Sportsman Steel Safes that friends and family have purchased and they all are very rough around the edges - poor fitting parts and poor finishing of the metal parts seem to be the norm, so please be aware that you get what you pay for, and "economy" may not be worth the price you end up paying.

 

[wacki]

Most real vault doors open out. It is very rare to see an inswing burglary resistant door. It is also very rare to see a real safe that doesn't have external hinges. These tend to be two features seen commonly from gun safe manufacturers.

Are vaults with inswing doors at a major disadvantage? I guess theoretically you could slant the door jam so the vault door fits in it like a wedge. But with dozens of thick steel bolts I don't see that kind of strength being super important against anything other than explosives. And if they are breaking out the TNT in my basement I'll be happy to open up the vault door for them. $$$ Value of House >>>> $$$ value of guns

 

[a1abdj]

In theory, it is easier to "push" a door than it is to "pull" a door. This puts in-swinging doors at a disadvantage over out-swinging doors.

In a residential setting, this probably wouldn't make much of a difference. At the Fort Knox, it might.

The advantage of an in-swinging door at a residence is the double use of the room as a storm shelter.

 

[MrPeter]

This is a very interesting thread. When I move to a house I have always thought it would be awesome to build my own. I have never considered a saferoom though.

Time to do research instead of work

 

[The Deer Hunter]

Can the vault doors open from the inside? If not you might wanna consider stocking an MRE or two, some water inside and hook up an intercom system.

Way to over analize things, me....