Back in the mid 1980's I had to take a locksmithing course for my job, and a major part of the course was describing home security methods.

Here are a few minor points a homeowner should know:

1. Locks of all sorts merely keep honest people honest! 2.People who have chosen to earn their daily bread by stealing from others fall into two categories.
A. Crackheads and street thugs who operate by the slash & grab method are somewhat detererred by locks, safes and such because they either lack the expertise or the inclination to expend a lot of energy.
B. Burglars, Jewel theives and other hard core criminals are every bit as good at what they do as you are at your chosen profession. They have the expertise, tools and methods to open anything they care to get into, including your bank. For those people even a good home safe is merely a minor inconvenience.

For maximum security true valuables such as large sums of cash, family heirloom jewels or important documents should be kept in a safe deposit box at a bank. (Safety Deposit boxes are super cheap, by example we pay $20/yr).

A home safe should be used for temporary storage of valuables, such as when you take the jewels out to wear them for a special occasion.

For your important documents such as birth certificates, wedding license, military discharge etc, you should have copies made, then have the copies notarized. You can then keep the original in your safe deposit box and keep the notarized copies in your home safe for convenience. In most cases when you have to produce those documents they will accept the notorized copies and if not, you could easily go by the bank and get the original.

Where and how you install a home safe is every bit as important and how well the safe is constructed. If you simply install a wall safe in a wood framed wall the theives can easily just use a cordless saw to cut a chunk out of the wall and carry your safe off.

Most safes, even the cheap ones sold in the big box stores have holes in the bottom of the safe. Those holes allow one to set bolts in cement, then set the safe down on the bolts and the nuts are installed inside the safe where the theives can't get to them without opening the safe.

For maximum security you could install a floor safe set into the concrete foundation.

You should also know that one of the biggest problems with safes of all sorts is condensate moisture forming inside the safe. To reduce condensate you should have a silica gel type moisture absorber pack inside the safe and about once every 6 months you should heat that pack in your oven overnight on low heat to dry it out. (contact the stock room people of any store that sells electronics and they will probably have a bunch of those packs in their trash)

If you want the safe for fire protection make sure it is also waterproof. You will likely get more damage from water than fire.

Hi, Todd! I've seen safes in the wall of the master closet around here. You could put one into the wall where the clothes would hide it. I also know of a couple of houses that have a big honking heavy safe in the basement. They were older homes with almost antique safes that weigh a ton.

Your house looks great! You must be so excited.

I really screwed up in my new construction. It's on a slab and I should have had the builder put a safe in the concrete for me..dummy me, it's too late now. I have radiant heat and I'd be afraid to try to cut concrete now.

I really only would keep my better jewelry in there - just in case I have a cleaning lady that is not on the up and up.

I will have a security system so that may deter someone from breaking in. I also need to find a good "hiding place" for some of my things, just in case they get past the security system. Any thoughts on good hiding places or building in a hiding place?

"Any thoughts on good hiding places or building in a hiding place?"

There are fake electric outlets.

One of the best spots I have had was a short section of baseboard that was really a shallow drawer about 15"x3". It was big enough for jewelry, cash and credit cards.

Under the bottom of a cabinet, in the toe-kick area, with a lift-up panel. They might ransack the cabinet, but few will think to rip out the cabinet.

A deep cabinet or closet with a false wall at the back can hide even more ... unless an intruder measures the floors and notices that the wall is unusually thick, it's not going to be found unless they take an axe to the walls.

Thanks everyone. Good suggestions. I realized after posting that a wall safe wouldn't make much sense for fire protection because there wouldn't be much room left for storage because of the limited space. We'll probably need to put in fire safe bolted to the concrete in the basement. One safe that seems to get good reviews that I found online is the Sentry da3410. So I'm considering that one for now.

Thanks for the kind words Buckhead. Best of luck with your build too!

Downs Safe and Lock on Cheshire Bridge might be a good place to go and look and get a feel for options. I went in and looked once out of curiosity. Haven't bought anything but they seem like nice folks.

The newest electronic combination locks are VERY secure.

The only real way to get past them is brute force.

They do not use batteries at all, but a permanent magnet and a coil charge a capacitor enough to illuminate the dial with projected numbers.

You spin the dial quickly 5-10 times until the light comes on indicating enough charge to operate the lock.
The power only releases a solenoid to allow the lock bolt to be manually operated.

They do not even click, so you cannot record the noise of someone opening one and then find the combination.
The clicking on mechanical combination locks is to make it harder to 'feel' the wards moving.

After a set number of failed tries the lock times out and will not work for an increasing period each time another failure occurs.

Screw one up and you could wait many hours for the lock to even allow another attempt at operation.

Something else to think about. You may want to wait to add a safe until after you finish constructing your home and all the lookers and construction workers have left. If you put it in now, everyone knows it is there. If you wait, it limits the number of people who know it is there.

We are planning for a gun safe in our new home. We found the weight of the largest safe we had room for and made sure we reinforced the floor joists for its use in that area. Everyone I know suggests a liberty safe, and I am sure they have smaller safes, too. We are sealing our crawl space, and my husband has joked that we will put in a hatch from the master closet to slide into the crawl space should there be intruders or others. However, I think we would just end up trapped in our crawl space. :)

lazypup, thanks for that excellent info. We have all our papers in the safe in waterproof plastic bags but had never thought about adding silica packs to it...I'll start saving them up now and throw a bunch in the next time we get in there....thanks!

we have a Winchester gun safe, love it. We bought it "a little" bigger than we needed to put important stuff in other than the guns. (of course now, we wish it was still a little bigger! lol)