Home gun vaults. Who has one and what’s the do and donts ?

[Wheels]

When we built our house, I had them excavate under our front porch and our garage and they both are full concrete except for the doors. I did not have a safe door installed, just insulated steel doors. I use the room under the porch(8'x8') for my gun room. It has a digital lock on the door and I keep my safe inside the room. No HVAC, but I do run a dehumidifier in the room and golden rods in the safe. The room under the garage is 30'x30' and gets used for storage or storm shelter if needed.

 

[AK_Skeeter]

Looking to add a vault to replace a few safes and looking for other peoples experiences.

A different perspective.
For 40 years I used a cheap gun safe I bought from Sams Club.
It is bolted to the wall in a closet and not apparent to someone in a rush.
Yes it is not fireproof and you can cut through it like butter with an angle grinder.

But if there was a break in in our house, I would know about it immediately because
we have Ring contact sensors, motion detectors, and video Cameras.

A drug addict is going to want to break in and get out with valuables as quickly as possible.
He is not likely to have an angle grinder. He would not want to meet my armed neighbor who
I would call and is a few minutes away.
Plus the drive in the our home is a private lane surrounded by boreal forest that makes
exiting by driving impossible if my neighbor or I is waiting blocking the drive.

 

[strousek]

We are in the process of building our new house and put a safe in under the front porch. Since this was a new build it added very little to the cost of project. We designed this house ourselves so we were able to utilize the front porch and some corner foundation basement walls for the vault location. The walls are standard foundation 8" walls and the only added cost really was the lid. Instead of a 4" slab for the front porch we have a solid 8" concrete lid on the room. The lid on the gun room is 2x12 treated joist with 3/4" treated plywood and a waterproof membrane before the concrete.

I put in a Hornady safe door. Again being a new build this was so much easier than an add on. I was able to get the safe door into the basement before the sliding glass door was installed. Used a work truck with a liftgate to drop the door on 4 wheel carts right on the basmenet slab. Rolled the carts to the safe door location and 4 guys simply stood the sucker upright.

I have radiant floor heat throughout the house so I ran some tubing in the floor for the gun room. I put this off the same zone as the rest of the open basement area but just spaced the tubing out a little father so it receives less BTUs since it is fully encapsulated and has far less heat loss. So far this room has stayed a perfect 63 degrees all winter long as the rest of the basement maintains 65 degrees.

We live in CO so pretty dry climate. I don't have any airflow in the room just the radiant floors but have been monitoring the humidity. The humidity has been very stable as well however I do plan on putting a small stand alone dehumidifier in just in case. We will see this spring how the humidity does now that the house is finished.

For now we have the sheetrock finished to the edges of the door. I think the look is great however the wife wants to keep the vault door hidden. So once we move in I plan on creating either a bookcase or barn wood slat wall hidden door to cover it up.

 

[Wheels]

One other consideration if you plan on building a "vault" and also plan on using it for a storm shelter. You will want an inside opening door on it in the event that there is a collapse outside the safe room. Hard to open a door out when the building has collapsed onto the structure. I know it's a long shot, but something to consider.

 

[bradmacmt]

I'm a general contractor and have built several, including one underway currently. As above, I always use an in-swing door. Make sure you leave room @ the door opening on the hinge side to fur-out the walls with studs to give the door the ability to fully open. Going crazy with a bank vault quality rebar pattern really isn't needed. Of course you'll need a pan-deck ceiling. Make sure to put down a vapor barrier for the floor pour - important! Lastly, have a conduit placed discreetly in a wall prior to the pour to allow for wiring.

 

[Dust Rider]

If you plan on having a humidifier, then put in a floor drain. If in a dry climate a small heater and fan will work like a large Golden Rod. Have your electric running to the panel discretely labeled.

 

[ReaptheHeat]

From research on this forum, the only safes that have reported to have survived fires are in basements/surrounded by concrete walls.