Taking care of your valuables is very important in life because you never know what could happen if you are not careful. One of the simplest things that you can do is purchase a fireproof safe, not least this will protect your important documents and belongs and ensure that they aren’t damaged by flames or extreme heat.
You simply never know when something like this will happen, so it is definitely worth planning ahead and protecting yourself against the unforeseen. There are many different grades of fireproof safes, so make sure that you figure out exactly what you need before making one of the purchases.
The length that a safe can last in a fire varies greatly, as there is no exact amount of time that one can survive. Underwriters Laboratories is an independent company that measures the effectiveness of these safes by giving each of them a class rating. The two classes that are generally found are 350 and 125, with the number showing how hot the inside of the safe gets when exposed to a direct flame. When a safe is exposed to a direct flame, the outside of the safe will heat up drastically. With a class 350 model, the inside of the safe will never get beyond 350 degrees Fahrenheit and with a class 125, it will never get beyond 125 degrees Fahrenheit. A class 350 model is perfect for paper documents, while the more expensive class 125 is necessary for any electronic data like CDs.
These ratings are based on one hour in a direct flames, which might not sound like much but it is actually a significant amount of time. First of all, most fires burn at around 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while these safes are tested at about twice that temperature. Secondly, fires usually only burn in one area for a short period of time, before moving on to another location. This is because there is usually only enough fuel in each location for the fire to burn at maximum heat for about 20 minutes.
Once the hottest portion of the fire has burnt out, it is called the cool down period and your safe will be fine during this period as well, as long as it has passed the UL test. The cool down portion of the test often lasts as long as 25 hours, so you can trust that your belongings will be safer for much longer than the one hour that these safes have been approved for in the test.
Safes that do not survive the cool down test are not approved by Underwriter Laboratories, so you can trust that your belongings will be safe in pretty much any fire. Before you make your purchase, make sure that the safe has passed the actual test because some companies will say that their safe has been tested to these standards, without ever stating that the test has been passed. In order for your documents and belongings to truly be safe, you must find a safe that has passed these stringent tests.
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