Walk in gun vault question

[Ranger Roberts]

I have a question for you guys that have a vault door or safe room rather than a standard safe. The wife and I are having a new house built on our current property. Incorporated in the plans is a walk in gun vault (I'm tired of buying new safes!). The builder has left the door size, the purchase of the vault door and the interior up to us.

So my question is this: For those of you have done it, can you tell me what you like about your set up, things that you would have done differently, the size door you went with and what company you used for your vault door purchase?

I have a good idea which company I will be purchasing the door from but it isn't set in stone yet, so I am open for suggestions. Also I do not want a digital lock or fingerprint scanning bio-metric DNA testing eyeball laser doodad, I want to stick with the trusted combo lock.

 

[Ohio Gun Guy]

Cant speak to your question, but as a construction guy....

make sure you get good shop drawings for your contractor. There might be a frame required to be embedded, therefore you might need the door in advance of the construction of the vault (If this isn't a major problem for some other reason, I would do this / then protect it). When coordinating things that go into opening, trades will often leave a little extra room.... be sure to know the "Clear opening" / "Rough Opening"size as well as the "Actual" dimensions. Share these with your contractors, otherwise something wont fit or they will leave a larger than needed opening and will have patching.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Thanks Ohio Gun Guy, that's good advice. I'm meeting with the builder on Friday so I'll definitely mention it to him and have the door manufacturer give me specs way ahead of time.

 

[a1abdj]

Beware of your average "vault door manufacturer". You can be the best welder in the world. You can be the best painter in the world. Neither of those has anything to do with building a door that will keep a bad guy out.

I'd suggest calling a real safe and vault company near you, and see what they can come up with.

 

[leadcounsel]

Tagged for future interest.

I'd contact various vault door builders like Graffunder for suggestions or plans. I'm sure they have information on this.

I've thought about this a little, not much. I'm thinking of poured/reinforced room with a poured window casing with steel or rebar imbedded in the window side to side or top to bottom, or just small window slats to allow natural light and some visibility outside but not big enough for entry.

Poured floor and ceiling too. Perhaps an recess in the floor for a hidden safe - so when you lay a nice floor you can have a secret door for anything extremely valuable to be hidden in a floor safe.

Maybe a 3'x3' poured recess in the wall to accommodate your safe so that it is harder for someone to defeat if they access the safe room.

Some form of water-free gas-type fire suppression system in your gun room?

I would also design in so that the vault door is actually hidden behind a false wall or book case or something creative.

It would be tempting to not get into "mission creep" and want to do too much with the room, and continue to expand it and make it bigger and bigger...

 

[jaguarxk120]

If water is no problem a small in the floor safe can be installed in the walk in area. Car washes and gas stations used them, 8-10 inches in dia. and about 24 inches deep. Good for small stuff, because that safe is in the ground there is no fire rating, every thing is protected.

 

[rondog]

A walk-in vault room is my fondest pipe dream! Right up there with my own range and a big workshop.

I've often thought that having the door open inwards into the room might be better than opening outwards. Reason being, in the event of using the vault room for safety in case of a tornado, I'd be afraid of debris blocking the vault door from opening outwards, and trapping us inside the room. If the door opened inwards, you'd still be able to open it and at least have a chance of getting out.

Growing up in Oklahoma, I always think about tornadoes, and staying safe from them, as well as debris and collapsed buildings. I'd want my vault to serve double duty as a storm " 'fraidy hole".

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Beware of your average "vault door manufacturer". You can be the best welder in the world. You can be the best painter in the world. Neither of those has anything to do with building a door that will keep a bad guy out.

I'd suggest calling a real safe and vault company near you, and see what they can come up with.

These are the guys I was thinking about going with: http://vaultprousa.com/
I don't have any affiliation with them or anything but I got talking to a guy at hunting camp this year and he suggested them.

I've often thought that having the door open inwards into the room might be better than opening outwards. Reason being, in the event of using the vault room for safety in case of a tornado, I'd be afraid of debris blocking the vault door from opening outwards, and trapping us inside the room. If the door opened inwards, you'd still be able to open it and at least have a chance of getting out.

Growing up in Oklahoma, I always think about tornadoes, and staying safe from them, as well as debris and collapsed buildings. I'd want my vault to serve double duty as a storm " 'fraidy hole".

Fraidy hole! Haha! Never heard that before but I've only been to Oklahoma once (Ft Sill). I'm in PA so tornadoes aren't something I think about often. We do have them occasionally, but what we get would make mid-westerners laugh. I think you guys would be out flying kites and socializing during PA's version of a tornado!

I'm thinking about an "outswing" door instead. The only reason is that an "inswing" door you lose 7 inches of walk through clearance space, and the space behind the door may become unusable depending on where the door is situated.

 

[a1abdj]

These are the guys I was thinking about going with

I'd call a local professional and see what they can do for you.

Everybody is happy with their safes (and vault doors) because they look nice, and the door opens and closes. Very rarely does somebody who's happy with their safe actually use the safe for its intended purpose. And until that day comes, you won't really know how happy you are with it.

As somebody who works on this stuff every day, I can tell you that many of these manufacturers have no background in the security business. They just figured one day that they could weld up some boxes and get into the business. They have little to no idea what it takes to keep a bad guy out. They have little to no idea how fire protection works. So you could buy something from one of those guys, who's using your purchase as an experiment to figure things out, or you can buy from somebody that actually knows what they're building and save yourself all sorts of trouble down the road.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Thanks a1abdj. I just called a local guy who services our cells and vault at work and left a message. I know in the past he has mentioned that he travels all around the country servicing and building custom vault doors, as well as doing speaking events for other people in the industry. The guy I talked to at hunting camp this year is an FFL and I think he met the people I mentioned above (http://vaultprousa.com/) at SHOTSHOW last year. I don't think he had any personal experience with them, he just said that their product looked good.

 

[CB900F]

Ranger Roberts;

Although I do not personally have a vault room in my home, I've handled the process for many customers. There are better and much worse ways to go about building a vault in your home.

Although Graffunder does build a standard size door, I don't suggest going that route. Since, in the vast majority of cases, concrete work doesn't get done to exact dimension, fit of the door to wall can be less than optimum. Graffunder will build to dimension, which means though that you have to do some accurate measuring of the opening in the concrete: Raw width of the opening, bottom, middle, top. Thickness of the left wall, and right wall, bottom, middle, and top. Height of opening, left, middle, and right. And thickness of the lintel, or the wall at the top of the door, left, middle, and right.
But what you get is a door that fits.

At that point you have options for the thickness of the door, flange widths, and lock of course. Some folks want an in-swing, other's don't care, but either way it can be done. Need hinges on the left? No problem.

PM me if this is of interest.

900F

 

[Kp321]

My vault door is from Browning. It came pre hung and ready to install. There are four, one foot long j bolts on each side and one on the top. We stood the door up, formed around it and poured concrete. The remainder of the vault is cinder blocks with rebar through the holes and a poured ceiling. The holes on the cinder blocks were open at the top so concrete filled at least part of the walls when the roof was poured. The floor is at least two feet thick, poured on original grade, no fill sand under it. We too live in tornado country so the vault doubles as our storm shelter.

 

[SuedePflow]

Ranger Roberts - Will the room be above ground or in a basement?

My father had one incorporated into his last home build. I'll see if I can get the info on the door that he used. I might even have some images of it somewhere on my cell phone.

 

[BSA1]

This is easy for the builder to do on new construction.

We built a ranch style home with a wrap around porch. I had the builder put the vault under the porch that is on the south side of the house. The walls and ceiling are 12" poured reinforced concrete. I choose a Fort Knox vault door.

As there will gaps between the frame of vault door and the concrete wall I filled as many as I could them with both fireproof expanding foam and caulking.

Since then I painted the entire inside of the vault with white concrete primer. I added a battery power emergency light near the ceiling that automatically comes on for loss of electricity during tornado warnings. I also have a battery powered Coleman lantern hanging from the ceiling. (It gets dark in the vault when the lights are out).

Something to think about is heating and cooling the vault. By building code my builder had to drill two 5" holes at the top of the walls for ventilation. Since a big reason for the vault is fire protection this created a problem for me as fire can enter the vault through those openings. I removed the ductwork that went into the vault (for a/c and heating) and blocked one of holes with fireproof expanding foam. I have the other 5" hole open for now as I have not found a solution for it closing automatically doing a fire.

It gets very cold in my area in the winter (well below freezing). So I have a small room heater on a timer inside. I regulate the temperature between 55 - 60 degrees. During the summer it usually only climbs to 70 degrees. I consider these temperatures to be ideal as I store gunpowder and primers in the vault.

Being inside the vault with the door closed such as during a tornado is not a issue with Ft. Knox as the door has a lever on the inside to open it.

I am considering installing some pegboard on the wall to hang my long guns freeing up floor space. I am very happy with my vault.

This is the door I have except it swings out.

http://www.ftknox.com/vaults/vault-room-doors/

 

[spur0701]

I built the house I am in now back in 2001. At that time I had the contractor put in a 12'X14" gunroom in a corner of the basement (the exterior walls were poured concrete), the interior walls were hardened with triple layers of 1/2" OSB and double sheetrock inside and out (didn't do concrete since the ceiling was the weakest point anyway and too expensive to do in concrete). For the door we used an exterior steel door with the hinges on the inside. IIRC the door was $150 or so but he really didn't charge anything extra other than that since there was plenty of left over OSB and sheet rock and it didn't take long for the sub-contracting hanging crew to hang the extra stuff. I did have him put in an exhaust fan ($50) and a slop sink ($150), but that was it. After I moved in I hid the door behind a big oak bookshelf that was mounted to the wall with a big steel piano hinge but it didn't work very well (we had to insert some 2x8s in the wall to hang it on and it sagged and dragged on the floor even after we stiffened the back of the book case with plywood and you couldn't put any number of books in it to complete the illusion of a real book case).

Fast forward to 2005 (I think), I ran out of space in my original gunroom and my neighbor and I built another wall with another exterior steel door 12 feet outside the original one giving me two rooms, one nested inside another. However, this time I used security mesh (just do a google on it, it comes in different sizes and gauges) in addition to the OSB and sheetrock. I ditched the book case thing but I did alarmed it (mag switch on the door and motion sensors inside....it's easy these days with wireless alarms) with a monitored alarm that also has a 100 decibel siren as part of the system. The ceiling is still the weakest link and someone with lots of time and a chainsaw plus some bolt cutters could probably get in but it's gonna be hard........and the cost of the entire set up was very reasonable.

 

[jaguarxk120]

Just might want to look at the Winter edition of Double Gun Journal.

Has a nice wright up on walk in safe interiors, the pictures show some nice high end gun cabinets.

 

[Chuck R.]

I went through a similar process back in 2012 when we had our house built. We excavated under the 3 car garage (700 SQ') and used reinforced concrete and a 10" reinforced concrete slab for the ceiling/garage floor. So I've got earth contact on 3 sides and reinforced concrete on the other 2. The basic house is ICF construction, and the "safe room" is on it's own zone for the geothermal system. The additional cost for the unfinished room was around 7K, but then add wiring, lights, etc. We framed and insulated it ourselves while the house was still under construction. Total cost with door was around 12K.

Be careful with your door dimensions as has been pointed out earlier, also research and figure out what you want your door to "do". Which sounds silly, but a lot of doors do not secure from the inside unless you want/use an electronic lock. A lot of designs don't do "in-swings", which for a safe room in tornado alley is a "No-Go". Originally I wanted a Browning, but was amazed to learn they can't be secured from the inside. Then there's the cost..........

I ended up going with a Sturdy, for about $2700. It's not the best door, but it's affordable. The company really was great to deal with, as was the trucking company that delivered it. It came with a mechanical lock (S&G), and an inside "panic" button to secure from within. I figured between it, and the safe located on the inside, alarm system etc. I'll buy some time. After discussing with my builder and realizing that anybody with a concrete saw will bypass my door in a little time, the safe within a safe is the route I took. The average knuckleheade thief will be stymied, but a determined one will get in............eventually.

I'd pick a door first, my concrete guys were actually able to get the door dimensions surprisingly close once I gave them to them. If not your builder can fix, just ensure he understands.....

Also IF you're below grade, be sure to have a drain installed for the dehumidifier. The Geothermal takes care of the humidity when it's running heat, but in the summer a dehumidifier is the cheaper alternative.









Chuck

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Don't forget the ceiling of the vault. May not need to be concrete but you don't want that to be the weakest link.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Ranger Roberts - Will the room be above ground or in a basement?

It'll be in the basement. Well, it's gonna be an "add-on" to the basement. It's actually going to be under the porch and it'll have a poured concrete ceiling as well. The vault door will be in the basement.

Thanks for all the info guys! It's helping me out tremendously.

 

[Chuck R.]

It'll be in the basement. Well, it's gonna be an "add-on" to the basement. It's actually going to be under the porch and it'll have a poured concrete ceiling as well. The vault door will be in the basement.

Thanks for all the info guys! It's helping me out tremendously.

Definitely look at insulating, and a drain for a dehumidifier.

A friend of mine has a similar setup, and where I have a garage over my "ceiling" his is exposed (Porch). When he built his he didn't have a drain put in for a dehumidifier, and now has to dump the collection bucket every few days. The cold concrete slab ceiling creates condensation like crazy without insulation once the weather turns cold and the warm(er) air from the house hits it.

Chuck

 

[Lloyd Smale]

buddy did one and said if he was going to do it again hed give the cement a year to dry before finishing the vault. He ran a dehumidifier and still had a moisture problem for the first year.

 

[SuedePflow]

It'll be in the basement. Well, it's gonna be an "add-on" to the basement. It's actually going to be under the porch and it'll have a poured concrete ceiling as well. The vault door will be in the basement.

Thanks for all the info guys! It's helping me out tremendously.

Sounds pretty much exactly like my father's set-up. His was in the basement, directly below the concrete foundation of the back porch. So, technically outside of the home's foundation. He ran into moisture issues initially. Basic wall sweating, dampnesss, and surface rust on his rifles. We added a dehumidifier and it solved any moisture issues he had. There's no drain in his room, so he's got to remember to go in and empty the dehumidifier about once a week.

 

[rogerjames]

You might want to reach out to this guy if you have specific questions. Hope you are not buying your door from the same place he bought his... http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=163902

 

[a1abdj]

Hope you are not buying your door from the same place he bought his...

Just another guy who welded up a box in his garage one day, and all of a sudden became a security professional.

This is why it is important to know the resume of the manufacturer. I will give it to him. His doors look great from the outside. A look behind the cover is an entirely different matter all together.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

I have to question the walk in safe shown. What good is that big heavy steel door that cant be kicked in when a sledge hammer will get you into any of those wood framed walls. Looking at the door frame its obvious that the wood framed walls are covering a concrete block exterior. I could get into that safe with a good knife. that is unless im missing something.