Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Safe room/vault door advice needed

Need some opinions and or advice. Prefer first hand experience obviously

Building a house. Have a 9ftx10ft area we will be pouring the ceiling and creating a vault or safe room in basement

12” block walls poured with horizontal and vertical rebar. At door will step to 8” block unless going Fort Knox safe to allow for door. Roof will have a 4x6 I beam with spandeck on top and compuseal gold waterproofing with Np1 caulk. Then concrete. It’s a back patio area on top and covered by roof

Floor will have a drain for dehumidifier to hook up to.

Lights inside. Will also have air flow through hvac at recommendation of a local company that sells safe doors. I think that defeats purpose during fire but they acted like it didn’t

I may put a exhaust fan and not hvac

Here’s the question

Vault door at 9-11g $ for a genuine browning or Fort Knox. They are crazy expensive

Or a 3 point lock steel fire security door with keyed/electronic locks.
Have body shop paint it up fancy and put something like “jinks vault door company” est 2022. Basically lipstick it up some. Under 1800$ total

What say the fire

When I built my log home in '92.....in basement with boiler hot water heat in floor

Framed a 10x10 corner room with walls/cap & rebar

added two vents.....3 hour rated steel fire door---no heat tubing in floor

But it was a nice quiet Utah rural 'hood.......

Have a local machine shop build one with steel?

what ever you decide.....

It's a good investment....

Do what your budget allows.....

Look at a simple 3 hour door.....

I wouldn’t feel less safe with the 3 point door for under $2000.

We can afford the Fort Knox door. I’m trying to be frugal knowing at some point something on this build is going to be over budget. Trying not to be foolish money wise.

I’m just not sure it’s worth the huge premium. That’s my dilemma. I have no real experience with them. Are they really gonna make a huge difference in the basement if my house is a total
Loss?

I could go on a good hunt with that money or buy more guns!


The 40” wide steel security fire door is obviously much more affordable and seems like would be dang near impossible to bust in with 3 point lock.

The wall it’s on I’ll be splitting a bunch of brick from a home built in 1892 and using as a veneer for the wall!! Helps to have a father who is a brick mason!

Assuming that it’s Chinese I hate to buy anything Chinese but realistically it’s probably just about as good. Have you looked at Sturdy Safe? I believe they make vault doors and have a great reputation for an affordable quality American made product. I have a Fort Knox safe that I bought used and like but realistically halfway decent safes and an insurance policy are the sweet spot for protection and security IMO. In the event of a total loss fire where everything caves into your basement and gets soaked by fire hoses it’s the insurance policy that you’ll value the most.

Just something for you to consider, many years ago a local gunshop had a fire. It was a fire where not much burned, more smoke damage. The AFFF foam that the fire department uses is EXTREMELY corrosive. They had NIB guns stored in the basement which of course filled with water. Three days later when they finally were able to get down there you couldn't even tell what kind of rifle you were looking at and none of the bolts would open they were that rusty. In the case of a fire all the water will end up in the basement and I wonder if you would even be able to open your safe door, let alone save the contents of it. Just something to keep in mind.

Have you looked at Sturdy Safe? They offer both standard and custom sizes. I cannot say anything about their vault doors, but can give high ratings for their safes.

sturdy safe standard vault doors

sturdy safe custom size vault doors

I built a gun room in my house just 4 years ago. Solid concrete walls and Ft Knox door with combo and key pad. $ well spent.

I engineer custom homes. Saferooms are often part of the design. Most of the time, clients get fire related safe doors in the $4-6k range. I'd do some more google searching. If I can find one of the model's we've used, I'll post here. It's significantly easier to install the door prior to framing the main floor. You can drop the door into place with an excavator.

As for the ventilation, do not do use straight pipe, add at least one 90 if not two 90's on the pipe and you can use cast iron drain pipe. The bends will slow down the effectiveness of the fan ventilation but also the possibility of the spark entering and starting a fire in the safe room. As much as possible, bury the pipe in the concrete or CMU walls to protect from heat. Obviously grout fill all the CMU cells.

Thanks guys. Keep the information coming

There will be a floor drain in the downstairs garage and it’s daylighted at one end. Should be okay and not flood down there as water should run out after a inch or two

Sackett. Never heard of them. Will check it out

All cells will be poured in this basement. Including the safe room walls that are interior to the house

safe room will have rebar horizontal every other course and every vertical cell as we had plenty extra at dads house so why not ! Even have fiber I can add to concrete for reinforcement if I want!

Mountain. I would love to hear of other brands!

Floor will either be stained and polished concrete or I’ll put some nice wood grain tile in it.

Is this for a walk-in gun safe, tornado room, or hood rat proof?

Another thing to consider would be going bigger. Given that being a basement and a lot of space is marginally used in most basements going bigger would add very little cost. Why not make it a safe room and plush lounge room/man cave with room for taxidermy and a recliner or two and possibly your reloading room. I doubt that you would regret a few extra square feet.

My stepson built a vault in his basement when he built a new home. He used a Fort Knox door. Note that this room if properly equipped with some ventilation can be used as a safe room during a tornado but you must have the door swing into the room. If the door swings out the debris from the collapsing house will trap you in the room. If the door swings into the room you will be able to open it and possibly dig your way out.

As far as concern about a fire entering the room thru the ventilation system, combination fire/smoke dampers can be installed in the supply and return ducts that will close in the event of a fire.

Our safe room, where I keep most of my guns, is primarily to give my wife a refuge when I am gone. The entrance is not visible and requires a trick to enter. A visible safe/vault is an invitation to home invaders to torture you or your wife to gain entrance, the more visible your wealth the greater the incentive to the real bad guys. Security systems are often compromised by the installers selling the info.


mike r

Try Liberty Safes.

https://www.libertysafe.com/collections/vault-door/products/vault-door-blockade#description