So, I am in the process of designing a new home which of course will include a built in safe room.

I had pretty much settled on a “Sturdy Safe” vault door.

However, looking at the installation, it looks like there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong. It is a drill and anchor the frame into the wall, shim anchor some more and then grout the remaining space between the concrete wall and the frame of the vault door.

Fort Knox and other vault door designs basically bolt to themselves using a flange on both the inside and outside against the concrete wall. This seems like a much simpler and guaranteed way to get it done right with little risk of fucking things up.

I know we have a lot of professionals in this forum as well as those who have been done this path before me, so any insight is greatly appreciated.

I went Sturdy Safe and it was installed by my builder following Sturdy’s instructions.  Only six months in the house and no issues.

Thanks for the response. More than a couple questions if you don’t mind;

Did you order/buy the door directly from Sturdy or did you have the builder handle that?

How far in advance did you order the door to have it on-site, on-time?

Did you have the door delivered to the job-site or to a separate storage location first?

Hoe did you store and protect the door prior to installation?

At what point in the construction process did you install the door? Right after the concrete wall went up or at the end before moving in?

Did your builder have previous experience with Sturdy Safe type installations?

Did the builder have any struggles or challenges with the vault door installation?

We’re you able to finish the installation so that it blended in nicely with the surrounding wall?

Any other advice for somebody following in your footsteps?

You don't want a safe door.  You want OBSCURITY.  Would it look cool to have a pegboard wall with your rifles hanging on it? Sure.  But you can have more security by having a secret room than trying to harden a room.

If you build a hardened safe room, every contractor, plumber, drywaller, and electrician will tell their lawn care buddies.  Everyone that sees that safe door will tell their buddy.  If you do a hidden room, you can have the contractors build out the space like a workshop, have a safe company deliver the safe (They won't GAF, since they deliver 3 per day...), bolt it down, install the murphy door, and STFU.  

Put the money into a fire suppression system and in to a safe with a higher fire rating.

Here is the house we (sadly) moved from in 2019....  The space behind the bookcase was 13'x30'. The only way you could know it was there was if you realized there were 2 basement windows on that side of the house, but only 1 visible with the bookcase door closed.

Attached File


Attached File

Grouting in a residential vault door is ridiculous for several reasons.

This is what happens when people take a look at "real" vault doors, have no idea why things are done that way, but then copy it with their designs.  Every residential door manufacturer tends to do things a slightly different way, each with pros and cons, and none of them really the way I would do things.   I have installed vault doors from just about every US manufacturer out there, both residential and commercial.

I install a lot of AMSEC doors, not only because I'm a dealer, but because I've put in so many that I've streamlined the installation process.

@a1abdj

Can you please elaborate more on why grouting is ridiculous?

Which system/style of mounting do you prefer?

Thanks!

Grouting a real vault door serves a few purposes, but the primary reason is to hold the door into the structure.  Swinging tens of thousands of pounds out of a wall generates a few forces that if not dealt with correctly will result in a door no longer remaining attached to the wall.

Most lighter weight commercial doors are installed without grouting as the frames or other anchors are designed to hold the door in place.  This includes all of residential types of doors as well.  Whatever system they use is more than enough to hold the door into the wall.

As far as which I like best, I can't say I have any particular version that I like the most.  Each has their pros and cons, and some are situation dependent.  They will all work in their own ways.

Thanks!

I bought a vault door from Smith Security three or four years ago when we were building our new house. I can't recommend them, not because I'm dissatisfied with the door, but because when I had an issue, they initially tried to fuck me over.

About a year after moving in, the lock (an S&G dial that they offered at a price premium) appeared to have failed. I contacted them and was told they weren't standing by the lock because it wasn't their "standard" lock (no shit, I paid extra for the upgrade). After persisting with them, the owner walked me through troubleshooting it and discovered it wasn't the lock, but a slight amount of settling occurred with the door and the bars weren't lining up perfectly with the holes. Once that was addressed, everything worked again like it should.

However, their early insistence that the lock wasn't covered because I asked for something different than what was "standard" really, really pissed me off. It took a while for them to even be interested in finding out what was going on with the door/lock. That's why I cannot recommend Smith Security. The door itself is everything I was looking for, but the service/company behind it is very lacking. When you spend $6k on a product, you at the very least expect the vendor to immediately want to know why that product failed even if they won't stand behind it. Not with these guys. It took way too long for them to be interested in what may have happened. By then, the damage to the customer/vendor relationship was cooked.

This was briefly mentioned at the top of the thread, but Murphy Doors are a great option for a hidden gun room. There is a gun cabinet door with built in gun storage, or a variety of hidden doors to conceal the entrance.

I have a Ft. Knox door. Wall opening was poured to dimensions specified by Ft. Knox and the door tilted up into the opening no problem. Then jack screws (bolts) are used to center the door in the opening, which also does a hell of a job locking the door in place. Finally the opposite side of the door gets a thick steel frame bolted on which clamps the door frame to the wall. The local dealer also recommended I buy a couple tubes of fire caulk and he ran it around the door frame when he installed it.

The hardest part of the install was getting the door off the trailer and onto the dealer's dolly.

Love to see that hidden bookcase door! Murphy Door also has a gun cabinet hidden door with a space designed to display guns and conceal valuables. Worth checking out as you renovate your new home!

Check this guy out...he builds some pretty cool doors.

https://www.instagram.com/barnworkscustomllc/

I had to look at whatever this guy was stealth advertising....


Actually, it is brilliant!  A hidden door that looks like a 4-6 gun rifle cabinet.  Put a few cheapo or deactivated rifles in it, and in event of a burglary, it gets cleaned out, but the good stuff behind the door is unseen.  Nice idea.