RSC/Safe placement 101

[jj1903]

I have learned a great deal here about RSCs and safes. Thanks to the professionals for all their patience and for sharing their knowledge!

I am struggling with the idea of where to put a heavy RSC or safe if I go that route. The house is typical 2 story stick built with a concrete basement and garage slab.

Putting something upstairs would mean keeping the weight pretty low. At that point, it seems like a locking metal cabinet bolted into a closet with a solid core door and a deadbolt would be as good or better than a light RSC anyway...

For something semi-secure and big enough to be practicle, that leaves the garage vs the basement... The house is on a hill, so the only way the basement would flood would be a pipe leak within the house. Basement has HVAC but is unfinished. Attached garage is not under HVAC and I would worry about both humidity and security out there. House is in the midwest.

 

[jnyork]

I dont understand your comment about the upstairs. Are you concerned with the weight-bearing capacity of the floor or just the hassle of getting the safe up the stairs? Neither concern is valid. Your floor will hold the safe with no problem at all and movers can get it up the stairs with no trouble.

 

[Hungry Seagull]

Buy a safe that will require three men to carry and have it bolted down by the safe company that sold it to you. Wood or Concrete.. let them know what you are dealing with.

We have one installed in a spot in our home that happens to have a beam under it and strongly holds the bolt. However, if any surviving BG's see it, they will simply toss a chain around it and yank it out of the home with a vehicle.

You really dont want that safe on the second floor. I think you can have it up there, but be damn sure you got a uber beef load bearing something under that thing and it aint over someone's head down below on the ground floor.

If it was me and two stories, I would pick a spot on the ground floor and call it good.

 

[a1abdj]

As a general rule of thumb, we'll place up to 1,000 pounds inside of a normal house unsupported. 1,500 pounds if the safe will be supported from below. We have placed 5,000 pound safes on second floors during construction, with a pedistal being engineered to hold the weight.

If you're dealing with stairs, I'd keep the safe weight under 1,000 pounds.

You can place almost anything you want in a garage or basement (if it is a walkout you can drive to).

As far as guns, I would rather have them inside than out in the garage, although we have a number of customers keeping their gun safe in the garage without problems.

Buy a safe that will require three men to carry and have it bolted down by the safe company that sold it to you. Wood or Concrete.. let them know what you are dealing with.

Good advice. Just make sure they know what they're doing. There are plenty of places that sell gun safes that would know just enough about them to cause serious problems.

 

[Hungry Seagull]

We had a safe provider in our area that did a excellent job.

I tell you this much.

Walmart/homedepot safes with that plasticy combination wheel was a very big waste of our time. that only helped us get a proper safe LOL. :banghead:

We found a safe that had several different ways to get into it. Combinations are nice but two shaking people in a hurry and feeling stress are not going to remember the numbers worth a durn LOL.