Electronic or a manual safe
 

I am looking to buy a safe for the home so i can keep all my important papers in one place and not everywhere like they are at the moment.

What would people here recommend a manual or an Electronic Safe?

What size in litres also is a standard safe? as they all seem to come in litres.

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Ours is manual and about 20 litre volume.

Can't comment about electronic but the irony is the insurance company insist we never leave the key in an unattended house, so if Mrs G gets her bag stolen we need to make sure we get home before the thieving so and so's!!

One thing to remember is multiply the cash rating by 10 for valuables.

Cheers

Grim

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Choose one and then google for a video how to crack open it under few seconds with no key or no code. I've got a Yale one, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIgkb1K_Jrce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYB9ceiAiY

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

im not going to be keeping cash or anything like that in it.

The reason i need one is because since my strokes my memory has been affected and i need to keep all important stuff like Passports, Drivers Licences, Home Insurance, Life Insurance, Copy of my Will and so in one place where my son and i can lay our hands on them easily if needed and not have to hunt around the house.

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

I recommend a Sentry Fire Safe. Not overly secure, but it should protect valuable documents in the case of fire. Available as a "proper" safe too, although they all seem to have key access for when the batteries go flat.

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Some safes can be bolted to the floor, so not easily removed.

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Lol! Sounds like a ten year old on the video but nonetheless, a few flaws:

A) You'd have to get it off the wall first, and B) Shoddy programming can't be guaranteed on all safes :)

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

I have this one

http://www.yale.co.uk/en/yale/couk/P...roductId=98180

it has 4 pre-drilled holes allowing permanent mounting to the wall or floor. I mounted on the wall, only to find out you can poke a stick underneath it and ...


you can also open it, using flat wire, I cannot find the video, a tubular key etc etc

but it's fire proof, so some sort of safety....

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

A cautionary tale!

In 2003 we rented a rather nice country villa near Cala San Vicente in north east of Mallorca. It had a wall mounted key operated safe inside a cupboard and so we thought it would be useful to place some of our valuables in there for safe keeping. One evening we went out to a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of our party and on our return we found the villa had been broken into, the safe had been crow-barred or jemmied off the wall and then jemmied open and all contents stolen. Interestingly nothing else in the villa appeared to have been touched despite there being cameras and even a wallet and other valuables in other rooms, only the safe was targetted.

We were lucky in that only my wife's passport was in the safe at that time, but that was together with around 600-700 euros in cash and travellers cheques and some credit cards. We stopped the credit cards and American Express replaced the travellers cheques (always keep the numbers seperate as we did!) but there was considerable time and expense to make the police report through an interpreter and to obtain a temporary passport to get my wife home!

As I said, only the safe was targetted and despite being bolted to the wall had been removed and broken into, had it been a better quality safe it could easily have been taken away by the thieves and opened with an angle grinder at their leisure!

Beware of "placing all your eggs in one basket" as the saying goes!!!

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

We have a small electronic one that lets you bolt it to the floor/wall, in case of failure/remove of the batteries it comes with a circular key lock too, behind where the battery compartment/control panel is. It's been flawlessly reliable in the 11 years or so we've had it.

Only problem I've had was my fault rather than the safes, where a lot of papers have been piled up inside and they can slide down the 'hill' and block where the bolts disengage, making it hard to open. Because I haven't bolted it down, I can jiggle the safe a bit until it clears, but that's operator error rather than design flaw.

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Here is the key for your (and my) safe

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TPXA-7-South.../dp/B005IA48D2

every self respecting burglar has one :D

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

Have that with you when you are outside your home, and you may be nicked for "going equipped".... ;)

Re: Electronic or a manual safe
 

:) yeap, police state.

Reading a book can be an offence too ;)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secrets-Lock.../dp/0873644239