If your gun safe is on the lighter side, (less than 500 pounds) there is a risk of tipping over particularly when the safe is not bolted. To minimize the risk of injury, the safe should be bolted to the floor.
This also ensures the contents (such as loaded firearms, knives, and other hazardous objects) don’t tip on you or on a member of your family. By anchoring a gun safe to the floor, you can also ensure that thieves don’t tip it over and pry it open. You can use bolts to anchor the safe firmly to the floor.
Contents
Benefits of anchoring your safe
On top of preventing your safe from tipping over, there are other benefits of anchoring a safe. These include:
- Enhance the security of your gun. Bolting down your safe can enhance its security greatly. It’s easier to break a safe that is lying on its back. When it isn’t bolted, thieves can knock it down on the side and leverage on the body to weight ratio, to pry it open.
- Prevent thieves from carrying the whole safe. When burglars have ample time and effort, they can break open any safe. Therefore, they usually ferry away the whole safe to open at a later time to work in it.
Factors to consider before anchoring a safe to the floor
Anchoring a safe requires more than just drilling some holes to the floor. The way you anchor it will depend on the type of flooring and the kind of subflooring. For instance, if you have a crawlspace or basement, the main level floor will be made of plywood with some underneath joists to provide support. These need wood anchors. If you don’t, or if the safe will be going to the basement, you may require concrete anchors.
- Find the four anchoring positions where you will drill holes
- Install the kit’s washer on anchor bolts
- Install bolts into the predrilled holes with a socket set
- Replace floor panel and floor caps
How to anchor a safe to a hard floor
If you have a concrete subfloor, anchoring a gun safe may be a bit hard. Some kits are specifically made for anchoring safes. On top of anchoring it, you will also need a hammer drill that you can use to drill into concrete.
However, you will want to ensure that you don’t have a post-tension type of flooring before you can begin flooring. This is important as the slabs are strengthened with sturdy steel cables that can withstand thousands of pressure.
If you damage a cable, it can get out of the concrete and may cause injury or damage. You can determine if the floor is post-tension by looking at it to see if it is stamped as post tensile. If not, you should follow the following steps in anchoring your safe:
- Find the safe precut anchoring holes. You can see this by removing the floor caps or panels
- Make a hole at the concrete floor of each of the 4 anchoring corners using a hammer drill
- If there is any dust in the holes, clean it
- Put bolts and use a socket set to tighten them
Anchoring a safe through stone or tile
If your floor is tiled, you can also put the safe on stone. The most important thing when doing so is to ensure that there is proper distribution of weight so that the safe doesn’t crack the stone. The majority of stones can withstand the gun safe’s weight.
However, it can be hard to anchor a safe on tiles as you might end up cracking them. If you have a tiled floor, you should speak to the installer to consider installing the safe on the wall rather than tiles.
Other ways to prevent a safe from tipping over
If anchoring a safe to the floor isn’t an option, you should consider the following ways of preventing your safe from tipping over:
- Bolt safes together. If you have two large safes, you can consider bolting them together. This way it will take a lot of effort to tip them over.
- Bolt to steel. You can bolt a large safe to a heavy piece of pallet or steel. This way it can be hard to move the safe through the door
- Bolt to the wall. If you live in a rental apartment you can consider attaching your safe to the wall.
Conclusion
It can be dangerous trying to install a safe without professional help. This may also end up destroying the safe. This is why you should contact a professional to help you with the anchoring. Once this is done, you will be assured that the safe will not tip over