Hello World! Welcome Friends! It won’t come as a surprise to gun owners that firearm safety doesn’t just stop at purchasing a gun safe and having it fitted into your home – instead, the placement of your gun safe is just as, if not more, critical. As the name suggests, although gun safes may primarily be used for proper firearm storage, it is also a convenient location to keep any other valuables as well that you want to be protected at all costs, such as important documents and paperwork, money, and other valuables that you simply cannot risk being damaged. Therefore, the significance and necessity of choosing a proper and robust safe location in your home are all the more essential for optimal security.
Choosing a proper location will be dependent on a variety of factors, as no two homes are the same, and aside from the physical layout of your house, other factors may include how much space you’re able to provide, for example, the number of people that live in your house, and the aesthetics. It may not seem like the first thing that comes to mind when you think of firearm safety, but the last thing you want is a huge block of metal in the corner of your living room. That’s also something that is customizable when looking at a gun safe, so you have plenty of choice for style as well as convenience. To read more about how to go about choosing the most suitable location for your gun safe at home, keep reading below!
Avoiding Water Damage and Humidity
You might not think of this, especially given the material of a firearm safe, but the room humidity is extremely important and more than capable of affecting the humidity within the gun safe too. Excess humidity can definitely cause harm to your firearms – not something you want to open up and find – and the same goes for water damage as well. Typically, the level of humidity within a room will be the same sort of humidity you can expect to find within the safe as well.
If you know that your home can get humid, then in that case, we would recommend the basement as being one of the most suitable locations for your gun safe. Considering the fact that most basements are made of materials such as concrete or brick, it makes it a lot easier to actually secure your gun safe to the floor itself and means that the chances of it getting too humid are a lot lower too.
If you’re still worried about your basement becoming too humid every once in a while, there’s an easy fix for that too. It’s worth using a dehumidifier to reduce the amount of humidity, and that should do the trick in maintaining the temperature of the basement and the gun safe itself.
However, in terms of water damage, you may find that your home falls within a flood zone. In that case, we wouldn’t recommend placing your firearm safe in the basement for obvious reasons. As an alternative, we would suggest you place your gun safe on the first floor of your home, but not much higher than that when you consider the weight of the safe. To avoid any risk of damaging your floors or in case they cannot support the weight, we wouldn’t recommend you go any higher than the first floor.
Avoiding Fire Damage
Another hazard to consider when it comes to siting a gun safe correctly is how to reduce the risk of fire damage. When installing your gun safe, of course, you want to consider any sources of fire and how you can keep your safe as far away from them as possible. One of the most obvious first steps is to make sure that your gun safe is nowhere near the kitchen and any fireplaces you may have at home, usually the living room.
When we say close to, we don’t simply mean in the room next door. If, for instance, a room is located above the kitchen, or there is an open door that leads towards the kitchen, that is still a potential fire hazard and, therefore, unsuitable for keeping your gun safe. The chances of the kitchen collapsing during a fire are quite high, so you wouldn’t want your safe anywhere near it.
An alternative location then would be anywhere in your home that contains materials – as mentioned before – such as concrete/stone, once again making the basement a good location for this.
If you’re considering the garage as a place for your gun safe, then that’s also not ideal. Garages are often places where you might keep fuel, chemicals, paint, lumber, generators, and outdoor power equipment, just to name a few. All of these things are flammable and, therefore, an automatic fire risk, something you want to keep your gun safe as far away from as possible, so do consider the basement as the best option.
Reducing the Risk of Burglary
Another reason why the garage isn’t a great location aside from the fire risk is that it’s also very exposed to the public eye, more so than your actual home, and also one of the spots that are most likely to be robbed. The garage door most likely opens on a daily basis, perhaps even more than once, giving a clear view inside, making it an unsafe spot to keep something like a firearm safe in plain sight that could easily be towed away.
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[…] Choosing a Safe Location at Home: Tips for Optimal Security […]