Fire proof safe for the home

Nine_Lives

I was thinking about this yesterday. If your house burned down, you'd hopefully have your insurance in order, so you'd get a pay out. You may lose your TV and your sofa & bed & all the rest of it which will be very irritating obviously. Money will go up in flames too.

I don't know about you, but if i had to save 1 thing from my house going - it'd be photos. Especially now as my dad has passed away .... if our house went up in flames, i'd have no photos of him whatsoever.

I know you can store online, but storing online is only as reliable as the website you're storing on. If something goes wrong, then goodbye photos.

I'd imagine the best bet would be a number of locations. Storing online as well as on digital media - DVD for e.g. These would go in a fire also, which is why i thought of a fireproof safe.

I don't suppose they'll be super expensive or take up an immense amount of space.

So how reliable are these things likely to be? And what sort of heat would we be withstanding? More than your little lighter i'm sure.

ic

Take a look: http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=fire+proof+safe&safe=active#q=fire+proof+safe&hl=en&safe=active&sa=X&tbs=p_ord:p&tbm=shop&prmd=imvns&ei=fisQT7iyLMiwhAfLxNWrAg&ved=0CAoQuw0oAQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=24454b0e185530b6&biw=1618&bih=965

The more you pay, the longer it'll last. Easy/cheap option is to have a portable one located somewhere on the way out which you grab as you flee. If you're not there, it might survive. Also needs to be water proof in-case it gets doused when they put out the fire.

Mr_Reeman

Remember too that the contents of the safe will get hot whilst a fire is going on around it. Paper may be ok in that it can get quite hot and not catch fire and will be protected. Digital media such as hard disks etc can suffer if the heat is too high. Look at media safes not just fire proof ones made for documents.

I get round most of this, but storing a a copy for all my digital media (photos videos etc) in a safe in the shed at the end of the garden. I know if the house went up in flames, I shouldn't spread to the shed!

WestonDave

I looked into this a while back as we are getting a growing collection of SD cards from cameras. Doesn't appear to be anything specific on the market and on reflection I wonder if its almost better just to have somewhere reasonably secure outside the house - e.g. a cashbox under a slab somewhere. As long as its watertight outside its unlikely to suffer fire damage, and digital media cards aren't really worth digging around to nick!

MX5huggy

I cover this issue with backup's by having a portable hard drive at my parents house, when I go there with my laptop, I just do a back up. Use 2 portable hard drives, which is what I do for work one is always off site.

Nine_Lives

I did think of coming from that angle - but then you're relying on other people & also having storage outside your house. I don't have my house yet so don't know what level of outside storage i'll have. Also, i don't like relying on others full stop. I appreciate some times you have to though. It may have to be done that way though.