What Makes a High-Quality Safe Door?

Every company out there boasts about their top-notch safe doors – but what exactly makes a safe door top-notch? With a multitude of options available, like Smith Security Safes' Stainless Steel Elite Vault Door, it's easy to find yourself drowning in the details. To assist you in making a sound decision for your security needs, we've compiled a list of the essential components of a high-quality safe door:

1. Steel - And Lots of It
2. High-Quality Lock and Lock Protection
3. Fire and Smoke Protection
4. A Safe Door Built for Your Needs
5. The Wrap-Up: Key Parts of a Quality Safe Door

1. Steel – and lots of it.

Heavy-duty plate steel is the foundation of a quality safe door. The thicker the steel, the better the security. Many companies offer what appear to be thick doors, but are often just thin sheet metal with drywall gypsum board in the middle. This is simply an illusion of security. The key to a quality safe door is to keep your best defense front and center - thick, heavy-duty, American-made plate steel. At Smith Security Safes, we’re proud to offer plate steel on both the door skin and frame, all the way up to 1 ¼ thick stainless steel. Our steel comes from the Ohio River Valley and is a consistent, high-quality product, unlike what many companies are using. Another way to increase security is to add ballistic steel (AR) or stainless-steel laminates on top of the heavy-duty plate steel – something we offer at Smith Security Safes.

2. High-quality lock and lock protection.

The heart of a quality safe door is a trusted lock mechanism. There are two basic UL (Underwriters Laboratories) ratings – Group 2, the bare minimum rating, and Group 1, considered “High Security” locks. We’ve been in business for over 40 years, and we’ve been able to find the most consistent, secure, and tested lock mechanisms available. Our mechanical and digital locks are UL Group 1 rated – which are considered High-Security locks, a big upgrade from most standard security Group 2 locks. Group 1 Locks offer a proven resistance to 20 hours of manipulation by a single expert, and over 1 million possible combinations. The other part of a great lock is lock protection. We offer an ultra-tough magnesium hard plate that specifically protects the lock. The hard plate prevents drill attacks and offers up to another ½” of metal protection to keep the lock in working order.

3. Fire and smoke protection.

While the steel door and high-security lock will prevent intruders, we can’t forget about another real danger – fire and smoke. A high-quality safe or vault door will offer great fire and smoke protection in 3 ways. First – it must have a thick plate steel base. Thin sheet metal designs tend to warp at high temperatures and allow smoke and flames to pass even the best fire seal. The average house fire exceeds 1400° F, well high enough to damage thin sheet metal. Second – it must have a high-quality expanding fire seal. We offer an intumescent expanding seal, which swells 10x it's original size in the event of a fire, sealing out smoke and flames. Third – A high-quality safe, like our Titan Vault Door, will offer temperature rise protection. In the event of a fire, you may not have flames or smoke enter your vault room, but the back of the door may reach temperatures that are dangerous to the things inside. At those extreme temperatures, typical building materials and papers will instantly combust. Smith Security Safes offers temperature rise protection by adding Fire Rated Gypsum and Fire Rated Rock Wool insulation to keep your vault room safe. For maximum protection, some customers have a safe door for their vault room and a fire-rated safe inside.

4. A safe door built for your needs.

Lastly, a quality safe door will be built for your exact situation. The worst thing that you can do is to settle for a safe door that doesn’t quite fit your situation. Adding wood to make a safe door fit into your concrete wall is never a great solution. If your wall is unique and you can’t get your door to fit properly, it can ruin the security of even the toughest safe door. At Smith Security Safes, we’re focused on making a solution to fit your needs. We can customize almost any aspect of your safe door, giving you the solution that fits your vault room perfectly.

5. The Wrap-Up: THE KEY PARTS OF A QUALITY SAFE

• Heavy duty, plate steel construction.
• High-quality, proven lock systems
• Fire and smoke protection
• A safe door to fit your exact needs

While there are many other aspects to look at, these 4 will make sure that your safe door offers maximum security to your vault room. At Smith Security Safes, we’re committed to offering you the best possible safe door to fit your security needs.