Gun safe vs. poured vault

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Kentucky_Rifleman

Kentucky_Rifleman

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With any luck, I'll be building my dream house this summer. I've lived in the city long enough, and I'm willing to make the 40 minute commute to live out on my farm with the rest of my family.

I own a good gun safe, but the problem is that the sucker is just too small. I'm faced with the choice of buying another safe and using two safes, or buying a bigger safe and selling the small one, or pouring a reinforced concrete walk-in vault when we build the house. I've found a couple of companies that sell vault doors, and they're cheaper or at least no more expensive than most decent gun safes.

It will be above ground, poured as part of the garage if I go that way.

Does anyone have any experience with poured concrete vaults?

How are they about humidity? Are they as secure as a good safe?

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

KR
 
Well, I'm no expert, but if **I** had the chance to make a concrete safe, I'd jump at it. I'm assuming you can have top, bottom, all sides of somewhat thick and reinforced concrete. I'd look into what would make it quite slow for the internal temperature to rise, so that internal contents would not be damaged during fire, and I'd go for it. Concrete has got to be cheaper than steel! Do some searching on the internet to see what other people have done.
 
By all means do a concrete vault. They're far more secure than a steel safe. However, if I were to build a new room or a new house, I'd consider also installing a floor vault. Basically a hinged opening directly into the slab in a place that could easily be concealed with carpet and a furniture. It's not something that would be practical for everyday storage, but it's more a "what if?" kind of thing.
 
do the following put you gun safe inside of the area where will you will pour you bigger safe. Make sure that you put a lot of steel in your poured concrete safe. Prior to pouring weld the steel together. Also anything can be broken into. There are diamond saws. A properly constructed safe will slow a thief down and there will noise. In the slab of your house add a hidden floor safe for what you absolutely can not lose and tell no one about it period.
 
W.E.G. said:
If you build your gun safe into the foundation, you better be darn sure you'll never have to move.
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I wouldn't necessarily say that. While it would make it less convenient for you, it wouldn't detract from the selling value of the house. In fact, it would only increase it.
 
Your biggest advantage in the opportunity to build a safe as part of your home construction is that you can do it somewhere inconspicuous.

You could have it be off the basement and disguise the door, or have it in the floor as has been mentioned. Anything can be broken into given the right tools and a little time, but not if they don't even know it's there.
 
What about humidity? Doesn't new concrete throw off a lot of moisture for several months if not longer?

Sure, it will eventually cure and dry I guess but I think I'd want to talk to some concrete experts and find a way to line the outer sides of the pour with something that will absolutely block moisture from coming through the concrete once the pour itself had dried.

Doing this right for something as sensitive as gun metal deserves a lot of study and input from real experts in concrete bunker design. I ain't one ... good luck. Sounds like a great idea to me if you can get it designed properly.
 
Add electricity to your room, lighting, and if possible, HVAC to keep temp and humidity fairly constant. Make sure you have a drain or other means in case of a flood or busted water heater. Recess the locking door behind a regular door with something like "Danger - High Voltage" or similar - most smash and grab guys won't bother looking in something like that
 
You could have it be off the basement and disguise the door, or have it in the floor as has been mentioned.
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A basement safe room would be nice but I would not put a floor safe in the basement. A busted pipe would wreak havoc in it. Build it a good foot or more off the ground if in the basement and look into a good dehumidifier system (I'm sure a room would take more than a goldenrod)
 
In my neck of the woods there are a number of homes I have seen with bomb shelters built in the basement. A left over from the 50's. Now they are in the basement not above round like the OP asked about, but all the ones I have been in were definitely cold and damp. Good for a root cellar but not guns. At the least I would have electricity so you could have a dehumidifier or heater going if needed.
 
When I build my house I plan on doing the same thing. But mine is going to be nice, I'll put in a drop ceiling, with lights, HVAC, stud the whole room and rock it, etc.
 
Sounds like an ideal gun storage area. I suspect you'll need a dehumidifier though as I agree with those that think moisture from the concrete might be a problem. There's probably a sealant paint or coating that would minimize, or maybe eliminate the dampness.
 
I built a concrete walk in vault in my basement when we built our house about 5 years ago. I installed HVAC and electricity and have never had a problem with moisture. We built our house a mile from where the wife grew up, and we don't ever plan on moving.

My room is constructed of poured reinforced concrete 8" thick on all sides and the roof. The floor is only 4" thick, but has a 24" footer all around the outside edge.
 
Moisture would only be an issue if built below ground. If in your garage (as you originally mentioned) you can easily ventilate it without compromising security. But pouring concrete can get expensive quick. And the kind you would need isn't like the 80lbs bags you can get a hardware store. But since you'd more then likely be having a slab poured for your house anyways, it's not a big deal.

As some others have mentioned, you should also have electric run into it. That way you can sell it as a tool room or work room. You can even make it classy with some nice wood paneling. All in all good luck. Wish I could do the same.
 
Above ground concrete vault, with gun safes inside! You're talking about my dream here, on private land of course, with a private range.
 
The bigger you make a single safe, the more guns you will have "in the back of the safe."
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If I do pour it, and I'm leaning that way pretty strongly, it will be a walk-in affair, with guns down both walls and the back wall. It would make my guns much easier to get at. Right now I have about 50 long guns in a safe designed for half that many. It takes me a loooong time to get anything out of the back, and that's an issue I want to fix.

Make sure that you put a lot of steel in your poured concrete safe. Prior to pouring weld the steel together.
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That's good advice; I'll add that to my checklist. Thank you.

You could have it be off the basement and disguise the door
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If I do the concrete vault, I'll pour an extra run of footer and set it in the garage, not the basement. Having it above ground will help on the humidity. I do like the idea of concealing the door though. I'll have to work on that.

Add electricity to your room, lighting, and if possible, HVAC to keep temp and humidity fairly constant. Make sure you have a drain or other means in case of a flood or busted water heater.
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Also good advice. It's easy enough to add those things before the pour, but much harder after. I'll definitely take this advice.

This is one of the things I love about this forum; A lot of good advice I wouldn't have thought of on my own. I'd love to hear any other thoughts or suggestions.

For the record, if I pour, I'll pour 12" walls and the vault would sit on the garage floor, which I'll reinforce heavily and pour at 6 or 8". The trick will be setting the slab for the top, but I'm contacting the concrete, so that shouldn't be too bad.

KR
 
For moisture, you'd have to epoxy coat the cement or form some sort of vapor barrier. Moisture seeks a constant level through nearly any material.

I'd suggest a humidifier/dehum for controling that. There are some nice small air conditioners that control HVAC and Hum % that you could use.
 
Above ground concrete vault, with gun safes inside! You're talking about my dream here, on private land of course, with a private range.
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I'll probably just build some nice racks inside and count on the vault being enough protection. My place is out in the boondocks on 75 acres of family farm. My Mom's house will be about a hundred yards away, and my aunt and heavily armed uncle are about 400 yards off. We already have a 200 yard range cleared where we shoot. I'm really looking forward to not having to load the truck and drive for 40 minutes to go shoot.

When I get the house finished, I'll probably build a picnic shelter (aka covered shelter for shooting) behind the house, but that may well have to wait for next summer :p

Oh well, one dream at a time I suppose.

KR
 
Kentucky Rifleman

You might want to check out this site for your long gun storage inside your built-in safe: www.storemoreguns.com . I just saw him and his storage hardware at a gunshow today and it seemed like a pretty ingenious solution to storing a large number of long guns.
 
I think a concrete vault would be more secure. Of course disguising it is a big advantage to building as mentioned above. Humidity will be a problem at first, as the concrete cures, you may need to either do something special or wait some period of time to allow it to cure.
 
When I build my house I plan on doing the same thing. But mine is going to be nice, I'll put in a drop ceiling, with lights, HVAC, stud the whole room and rock it, etc.
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That's what I'm thinking. Before I was a teacher, I did construction for 12 years, mostly custom cabinets and interior trim. I'll make it nice inside.

I've decided on the poured vault. Several people gave me good suggestions, and I've found several companies that offer excellent vault doors.

I'll wire it for electricity and ventilate it with the house's HVAC system. I'll also plan on a good dehumidifier. I've been looking at moisture-proofing paints, and the best seems to be UGL Drylock. I read about several online and then went over to Lowe's. The paint guy said it was definitely the best for concrete. I'll probably paint the interior, and then use furring strips and Walnut panels to finish it out nicely.

The other thing I've realized is that the vault would allow me to lock up my ammo more securely as well. Considering I keep at least 1000 rounds on hand for every centerfire gun I own, 5000 for each rimfire, and components to load at least as many more, vaulting my ammo supply seems like a good idea from both the preventing burglary angle and the safety in case of fire angle too. (I've told my wife that if the house ever catches fire, just RUN. When the firefighters show up, tell them to steer clear of the back bedroom.

My neighbors would croak if they knew how much ammo, powder, and primers I'm sitting on. That won't be as much an issue on the farm.

KR
 
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