I'm looking to get a safe (Amsec BF is at the top of my list at this point) and have lost the battle with my wife to keep it inside the house under the protection of our alarm system and climate control.  So, it must go in the garage.

Other than bolting it to the floor, how would you protect and monitor a safe in a garage?

I've considered adding a motion sensor to the garage but I wouldn't want false alarms from pulling cars in.  And I don't think I could point the sensor in a way to avoid this while still being effective.  I will probably put a large shelving unit between the safe and garage door so that it's not immediately visible from the street when the garage door is open.

Also, I do not have any major tools.  Just things like regular hand tools, circular saw, cordless drill, and portable router.  No pry bars, concrete saws, or anything heavy-duty like that.

In addition to security, I want to make sure that I avoid rust issues.  Living in the northwest, it gets pretty wet.  Will something like a Goldenrod to the trick?  Should I do dehumidifiers in addition to a Goldenrod?

I would never use the garage to store a safe but since you don't appear to have another say in it I would have an insulated closet built around were the safe is going to be placed.
At least this way it is out of sight and not affected by all that moisture.

this is pretty much what i plan on doing if i dont put mine inside.  our staircase is shaped weird and a safe may not fit up the stairs.  i'm hoping it can go in my man room upstairs though.  the rest of my gun stuff is up there.

I am not sure what you mean by false alarms from cars pulling in. I think it is a good thing to have a motion trip when seeing a car pull in. You would just want to make sure that the zone that motion is attached to is configured as a 'delay zone' giving you time to get out of the car and disarm the alarm after pulling in. This is how I have my alarm configured for my garage.

If you do end up building a little room around it, you can put a motion sensor in that room and a magnetic sensor on the door to the room. Put a dedicated keypad on the door, and configure it all as a second partition (assuming your alarm can handle multiple partitions). Have it set to autoarm that partition after a period of time when all zones in that partition are closed. I built a room for my safes in my basement and this is what I have done...I need to disarm that room separately from the rest of the house, it is always armed even when we are home, and it autoarms about 15 minutes after all the zones related to it are closed...so it arms it back up even if I forget to.

Regardless of the above, having a motion or two in your garage is a good thing IMHO. A lot of us have as much money in tools as we have in guns, and it makes sense to protect them as well.

---Aaron

Two 18" goldenrodss in mine. Motion with 45 second delay, Key Fob on alarm so you can disarm or hit panic button on FOB if needed. No issues with mine. I have some boxes  stored on top with a blanket hanging down covering safe. A rolling table with junk on it placed in front. Looks fine. don't leave garage door open long. If you do Just make it blend in.

That is what happened to me. Dealer said "Yeah we can get it upstairs" got safe in my house "No we cant do that" ... Wife about lost her shit when she saw my safe in the middle of the living room (didn't have spot in garage for it, at the time)

Camera DVR night vision.

I'm not sure about your alarm system, but mine consists of the wireless contacts so they can be placed on any opening...when the alarm was installed the reps talked up the fact that you can place them on a safe or liquor cabinet.... I Didn't take there offer (mainly because I didn't want them knowing what I have or where I'm storing them)

This wouldn't protect you from every scenario (someone wheeling away the entire safe or cutting into it) but you know when the safe door is opened.

You could get a wireless camera and aim it at the safe... You can set up one of the dlink cameras to send you an email when motion is detected with the images, they go for around $100 at Best Buy but can probably be found cheaper else where.

Bolt it down, build a cabinet around it, you can put an alarm system on the cabinet, add a hidden game cam to the garage for further security if it gets compromised. I live in a similar environment and run dehumidifier and golden rod with no issues. Gun socks and oiled firearms add insurance against rust, keep an eye on the humidity with temp/humidity LCD monitors like you find at HD/Lowes for $20 bucks.

You can also install a seismic sensor to the safe and wire it into your home alarm system. This will set off your alarm if anyone attempts to cut, pry, or move your safe.

Put a tilt sensor on your garage door, and a goldenrod in the safe (or some other sort of dehumidifier).

Thanks for the ideas. I should also mention that I'm renting my house so building an enclosure is likely not an option.

Maybe a motion sensor in the garage would work after all. I'll have to see if I can set a longer delay on that one sensor to give plenty of time to disarm. Didn't think about tying it to the delay.

Anyone use this standalone safe alarm from Liberty? http://www.libertysafe.com/accessory-safelert-monitoring-system-ps-17-pg-85.html

I have no problems keeping my safe in the garage. Keep a goldenrod or dehumidifiers in it. I keep one of those outdoor/indoor remote temperature/humidity sensors above the safe with the remote sensor inside the safe, easily can tell if the humidity is too high at a glance. I try to make sure it doesn't get above 60% and I haven't had any problems with that.

I do keep cameras on all garage entrances and it is bolted down and out of sight...

That safe monitor from Liberty looks like a joke. You ideally want something tied into your alarm system.

As for the entry delay question, all of my experience is with DSC alarm systems, but they have 2 different delays that you can program and each can be up to 255 seconds. You can select which delay to use on a zone by zone basis, allowing you to keep your existing 45 second (or whatever you use) for all your current stuff, while having a 2-3 minute delay just for this motion to allow you to get out of your car and pop in the house to disarm.

Also, as others have stated, the newer wireless alarm system sensors and key fobs are pretty great with excellent range. You could disarm your alarm from within you car with one of those.

---Aaron

The above is spot on - I say the socks are overboard but that's up to you how much hassle you feel it's worth.
If your alarmng the cabinet, add vibration and thermal sensors to you safe.

I got the Safelert free when I bought my safe, through a promotion they ran. It's not meant to be a replacement for your home security. Its neat that I can get an alert on my phone when the safe's been opened, or jarred enough to set off the shock sensor but I don't know that I would have paid for it separately at $200.

Build your enclosure with 2 X 4's, plywood, and nuts/bolts and screws so you can easily disassemble when you move. The bolt down is likely a no go for a rental.

When done properly, sensors on a safe aren't needed.  If your alarm hasn't alerted before the bad guy gets to the safe, then whatever you have on the safe isn't going to do much.  That's why most places with high value items use two systems, one specific to the safes/vault.

Nobody has mentioned proximity.  This is a good option for safes, as they will trip if anything gets too close to, or touches the safe.

Exactly why I suggested setting up a second partition in the alarm system. It is a cheaper alternative to a completely separate system.



In the alarm community I generally hear of PIR or dual tech motion sensors being used as 'proximity' sensors. What type of sensor are you referring to here? A PIR or RADAR sensor more focused at the safe, or some sort of 'touch' sensor?

I don't do alarms myself, so I'm not nearly as educated on them as others may be, and can only speak from what I have experienced while doing what it is that I do.  The proximity sensors that I am familiar with require the safe to be isolated from the floor.  It runs some sort of current through the steel body of the safe.  As other objects move to, or away from the safe, the field produced by that current is altered.  Simply touching a safe using one of these sensors will trip the alarm.

Whatever it is has been around for a long time.  I saw a 1970's version of one of these in a department store.  It actually had a gauge with a needle on a box installed on top of the safe.  You could watch the needle move as you waved your hand in front of the safe.

Yah, I know what you are talking about. Probably a capacitive touch sensor connected to the metal of the safe. Frankly, I haven't seen that type of stuff in years, but I am not an alarm professional. I think they have largely been replaced by better and better digital motion sensing, as well as alarm integrated surveillance systems with motion zones programmed to trip a zone if there is motion in a specific portion of the frame.

Touch sensors and beam detection I think have been on their way out for a while.

On a side note, since I know you are a safe tech, how often do you see bolt position indicators hooked up to alarms/surveillance systems in the wild? Is this something that is common?

 


Rarely.  Many modern day electronic locks have these types of capabilities, yet they're still rarely used around here.  Businesses like banks, who work with large local security companies that know what they're doing, tend to be more apt to use every feature at their disposal.  The businesses that mail order their security tend to be relatively clueless about what they have purchased.

10 plus years of my safe in the garage.  No issues.  
I put in a motion sensor, but I can activate and deactivate my alarm from my phone, so it's pretty hassle free.  It's a service that Protection One offers, it's pretty neat.   You just open the Protection One app on your phone, type in your password and click "disarm"
I can always check the status of my alarm right from my phone, arm and disarm from anywhere.
I also armed the side entry door to my garage.
If I go out of town, I throw Lag Bolts into the tracks of the main garage door.  My safe is just as secure, if not more secure than anyone else's.
I live in a pretty dry climate, so my humidity levels are pretty low... always around 25 percent.  
If you can't build something around it, at least throw a big bed cover over it to help disguise it some.

It sounds like the general consensus is to build an enclosure and add a motion sensor on a separate delay.  Since I'm renting, I don't think building an enclosure is really feasible (maybe it is possible to build something easily torn down).  And even though I'm renting, I'm bolting the safe to the floor (better to ask for forgiveness than for permission in this case .  And I've reached out to my alarm company to see if it's possible to add a sensor on a separate delay (I couldn't find a setting for that so not sure it's possible).

Any other ideas?

ETA:  I'm not sure I want to do IP cameras...I've seen that they're pretty easily accessible.

Did you see my post above about mobile access?  Just put in a motion sensor in the garage and a sensor for the side garage door entrance (if you have one) and just upgrade the alarm system to allow mobile phone access.
This way you can disarm before you open the garage (which would trip the motion sensor)
You can put the motion sensor on a delay as well, but you have to rush out of your car to get in the house to disarm the alarm...it gets old after a while.  That's why I went with the mobile addition.
I don't think there is any set up out there that is better than this....

Get a different wife.

With all the poor security at websites, I am not sure I like the whole mobile access.

Nothing is stored and it's a heavily encrypted app.  It connects to your home alarm as you log in.
If you have an iphone, someone would have to  know the password to unlock your phone, then go to the app and know your alarm system password that you would normally type into the keypad..
If you have cameras set up, you can also monitor the cameras from your phone while in the app.

You would be horrified at the poor security at these 'cloud services'. When you type in your password, I would be very surprised if this app makes a direct connection to your alarm as that is too hard for the average person to setup having to worry about static port forwards...and the fact that most people have a dynamic IP address. It is going to a cloud service, and from there going back to your alarm. Both your phone and the alarm make outgoing connections to this cloud server and software on the server is taking the commands from your phone and passing them to the alarm. These servers act as middlemen to get around the problem of NAT (Network Address Translation) and dynamic IP addresses. All it takes is for someone to install something on this server and sniff traffic on it and they would be able to get everyone's alarm passwords. Encryption only helps the data while it is 'in flight' and most 'services' miss encrypting it while at rest. For example, with the Target breach, data is encrypted going to the credit card companies for authorization, but the data was being stolen before it was encrypted. Now just imagine a server out there that is handling all the alarm arm/disarms for everyone that signed up for the service. I don't trust it. Also, take a look at the Terms of Service for it...I bet they have limited their liability for stolen data to virtually nothing.

As for strong encryption, well, that is very much up for debate right now, especially after Snowden's revelations. The NSA helped a little too much in deciding on Rijndael for AES encryption changing it fundamentally from what the original algorithm intended. Then there is eliptical curve encryption where they helped pick the curve...and no one knows why they picked the one that they did.

If all the alarm codes got stolen, would the average person on this site be at risk? Probably not, but use that stuff with your eyes wide open.

---Aaron

Edit..Nevermind

My alarm service does offer a smartphone app (not thrilled with it, though, and costs more per month) and we do have key fobs.  But, I think getting the wife to disarm before pulling into the garage might be a tough sale.  Though, I could tell her that it's either that or let me put the safe inside...

Hmmm....  

Bolt it to the concrete floor.
Guy a goldenrod, and some reusable moisture absorbers.
Try to disguise it.

If at all possible have it in a place out of sight from the street/alley, I think that's the biggest point.  An enclosure or other camouflage is next.  When I had one in the garage I just kept the box from mine and cut it back to just the two sides that aren't along the walls.  So the box slides out of the way when you need into the safe.  Label it Dead Hooker Storage Uncle Bob's Old Fridge and pile some trash against it.

Bolt it down, yes.  Keep the concrete dust from the drilling for when you leave, mix it with some grout or epoxy and fill up the holes, landlord probably won't notice (except for seeing the giant box in the corner in the first place).

For corrosion it will vary by your location.  Here in this part of Texas it was not much of a threat in the first place.  My shovels and other tools don't rust just being left in the garage.  I did run a goldenrod and two of the Eva-dry which were dried out on a monthly basis, and had had no problems in 3+ years.  

Instead of a motion detector I had a basic IP camera in the garage, which sent me a text message when activated.  And I could check from an app, so I could see what was going on.