Safes: locks & maintenance

How safe is your safe?

Within the locksmithing industry, opening safes is a whole extra level of learning and the courses, along with the correct quality tools are rather expensive. This in turn makes the cost to the customer quite expensive as well. In Norfolk, there are just not enough customers for me to take on the extra expense. To make it worthwhile, I would have to put up my normal prices, and I am trying to keep as competitive as possible. While there are other locksmiths in Norfolk who will gain access to your safe, and I will be happy to guide you to them, safe opening is not something I generally do. There are exceptions, however. If your safe is small, the chances are I can get in through destructive methods and provide a new safe for a similar cost to the safe specialist simply gaining entry (they might also use destructive methods and charge more).

Better still, good practical maintenance of the safe is always the best course of action. A common scenario is when an elderly relative passes away and the family discover that the safe with all the important documents is battery operated and the batteries have long since gone flat because they were never changed. If you have elderly relatives, remind them to change the batteries yearly. Make sure you have at least two keys and they are stored in places where they cannot be damaged. One key should be kept at another safe location. I have had a case where one key was lost and the spare had been kept….in the safe itself (a common mistake with spare car keys as well – keeping the spare key in the glove compartment is not a good idea)! Simply opening the safe on a regular basis just to make sure all the levers seem to be working good, is also good practice. And always observe the “you get what you pay for rule.” If you buy a cheap safe from the high street, the chances are it will not last.

While I have said I do not generally gain entry to safes, I do provide and install all sizes of safe from the small ones that will hold documents to commercial sizes. I recommend that any household safe be replaced every ten years at the very maximum. I am also happy to arrange annual safe maintenance visits and do the things like battery changes that many people seem to forget. My aim is to make sure you can access your valuables when you need to by having the work done when it is economically convenient, rather than face a high call out fee at a time when you least need it.

Should you require a free consultation about safe installation, or just a question about the above or any of my other blog subjects, please do get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.

Thanks for reading.