Playing it safe

The recent recession actually was good for some businesses - the sales of safes and vaults.

Two years ago, the Sled Shed was looking for a non-weather-related product to sell in its Cedar Rapids store. The outdoor power equipment retailer ultimately added a line of safes and vaults.

'It's been well-received,” said president Mark Miltner of his company's new product line, noting that almost all the Sled Shed's safe and vault sales have been for residential or personal use.

With gun ownership and household safety concerns on the rise and the public's trust in financial institutions shaken after the recession, consumer demand for residential safes and vaults has been growing in recent years.

According to a 2014 report by business research firm IBISWorld, revenues in the safe and vault manufacturing industry have increased an average of 3.1 percent per year since 2009 to $434.7 million today.

Emily James, manager of John's Lock and Key, said the 50-year-old Cedar Rapids business has increased its safe sales in the past 15 years and moved to a larger space to have room for more safes.

Approximately 75 percent of all safe and vault sales at John's Lock and Key are for residential purposes, James said, and sales of personal use safes are increasing.

'People who used to store their guns in gun cabinets are now using gun safes because they are more secure,” she said. 'Additionally, more people are keeping valuables like paperwork, cash, and jewelry at home for ease of access.”

Miltner and James said some of their customers are going so far as to add custom vault rooms in new home construction. With thick cement walls and vault doors, these rooms often serve as tornado shelters in addition to securing the home's valuables from theft or fire damage.

'You can buy as little or as much as you want,” Miltner said. 'This is not a cookie(-cutter) process. It's important to do your research to make sure you know what you're getting.”

The safes sold by Sled Shed range in price from $300 for a gun safe to $12,000 for a large free-standing vault with extra layers of steel.

At John's Lock and Key, safes range in size from nine cubic feet - about the size of a dorm room refrigerator - to 50 cubic feet - bigger than most refrigerators.

Size matters

In choosing a new safe, James said it is important to consider the value and other characteristics of what the safe will protect as well as the threat that the safe will protect against.

To guard against burglary, a safe's strength and size matter. As its weight increases, so does a safe's security. Heavier safes have more layers of steel and thicker bolts, making them harder to crack.

'Burglars want to get in and out of the property quickly, so you want a safe that takes as long as possible to open and is as hard as possible to take with them,” James said. 'It's a great idea to bolt a safe down.”

James recommends that any safe weighing 275 pounds or less be bolted to the floor to prevent theft.

A safe's fire rating also needs to be considered. A fire rating is an industry standard set by the Underwriters Laboratory and indicates how long a safe can withstand an intense fire without damage to its contents.

'I'll recommend a higher fire rating if the safe will be holding irreplaceable items,” James said.

Another consideration in purchasing a safe is the locking mechanism. Popular options include dial combinations, electronic keypads and biometric fingerprint scanners.

Fred Madison, Jr., of Fred's Lock and Key in Cedar Rapids, is not a fan of electronic keypads on safes.

'Too many things can go wrong,” he said.

Madison, who has worked in his father's locksmith business for more than 25 years, said opening a safe with a broken electronic keypad can be tricky because safes are built to withstand efforts to gain entry with common tools.

'The metal plate is treated to be harder than a drill bit,” Madison said.

Additionally, drilling destroys a safe's fire proofing, rendering it worthless as a fire safe.

If a safe cannot be accessed because of a forgotten combination, gaining entry may be as simple as contacting the manufacturer with the safe's serial number to get the code. However, the person requesting entry should be prepared with paperwork establishing a right to access.

'If you're locked out, we can help,” Miltner said, 'but we're going to be careful.”