Start with the policy, finish with the wall
Your insurance policy sets the amount covered at home and the resistance grade expected for that amount. So the policy is read before a model is chosen, not the other way round. Fire resistance is a separate matter: a safe designed against burglary is not necessarily fireproof. For irreplaceable papers the two requirements stack up and are checked separately.
Then comes the backing. In the village, a stone wall tens of centimetres thick will take a built-in safe, but cutting the recess takes method and prior agreement in an old building. In the blocks of Le Cabbé, partition walls carry nothing: you fix to a load-bearing wall or to the floor. The wall is sounded before drilling: in the village, thickness varies from one room to the next.
An unanchored safe is a safe that gets carried away: fifty kilos move with two people, and it is opened elsewhere, at leisure. Anchoring to the maker's specification is also, very often, an explicit condition of the insurance cover. The fixing point counts for as much as the weight printed on the data sheet.
Where to put it, in a house that is often empty
Avoid the bedroom, the dressing room and the study: those are the first rooms searched, and they are searched quickly. Look for a load-bearing wall, a discreet spot and access that stays convenient day to day, otherwise the safe ends up not being used at all. In a village house, the recess under a staircase cupboard often earns its place.
Damp matters more here than elsewhere. A vaulted village cellar, a garage open to the sea at Carnolès or a basement at Le Cabbé all suit papers and digital media badly. A ventilated cupboard inside the home protects them better than an underground room, however well sealed. Salt and damp do not wait for the safe to be opened before they act.
For a shop on avenue Aristide Briand the logic changes: the safe stays out of sight of customers, in a room with controlled access. And if the code is lost, opening it calls for proof that the safe is yours, so keep the documentation and the serial number somewhere other than inside it. The maker will reopen nothing without proof either.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our safes page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.