36 • SAFES
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A safe bet for strong sales
»»STILL ONE OF THE MOST
effective ways of protecting valuables,
Burg-Wächter believes that safes
should be at the heart of a customer’s
security needs. Locksmiths will already
appreciate that the demand for safes
is as diverse as the range of potential
customers. Most of the time it’s
individual home owners looking for a
simple safe to lock away valuables and
important documents. Next up are the
local businesses handling cash; from
restaurants and retailers looking to
secure cash, to offices, accountants and
solicitors with a need to secure important
data and documents. Add to that the
small executive housing developer, local
hotel and even pharmacy all looking for
advice on safes, it’s easy to see why it’s
important to have access to a wide range
of safe solutions via a reliable and wellresourced channel.
To realise the potential of this
growing marketplace, locksmiths need
safes that are easy to sell, at a price
that gives a good return to customers
who are happy with the product
and its installation. Before they seek
professional advice, customers will often
have a pre-determined idea about the
size and cash/valuables rating for the
safe they need to meet their insurer’s
requirements. However, it’s important
to establish from the outset what the
customer is going to put in the safe, and
what they are seeking to guard against
before discussing the most suitable
options available. Doing this will not
only ensure customer’s needs are
met, but it also provides opportunities
for upselling features and protection
levels.
Contrary to popular misconception,
a high cash value rated safe isn’t
necessarily going to offer adequate
protection against fire and vice versa.
Regardless of which rating is the most
relevant to each particular customer,
it is vital that the advertised ratings for
models with cash ratings of £4,000 and
above have been properly tested and
approved by an independent body (such
as VdS and ECBs) and that test house is
recognised by the AiS.
Rather than being the final frontier,
space is also an important consideration,
as is location and fixing method. It is
also worth discussing the frequency and
number of people requiring access to the
safe’s contents, as this will help customers
select the most appropriate locking
mechanism, whether it’s timed, keyed,
digital or biometric.
SAFE CHOICES
The EN1143-1 Eurograde rating
system is designed to indicate to the
customer the ability of the safe to
resist attack. Each grade indicates the
amount of cash and valuables the safe
is certified to protect: starting at £6,000
cash (£60,000 valuables) for Eurograde
0 and running through to £150,000
cash (£1.5m valuables) for Eurograde 6.
Internationally recognised test houses
such as VdS award the ratings following
a series of exhaustive tests, with the
overall rating primarily based on how
long it takes to gain partial or full entry
to the safe. EN 14450 is another standard
for attack protection with a distinction
made between security levels S 1 and
S 2, but with lower requirements than
EN1143-1. Other criteria are also applied
to both the safe and its installation. For
example, Eurograde 4 and above safes
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | NOV/DEC 2016
must have two locks rather than one, and
any safe weighing less than 1,000kg must
be securely bolted in/down, or its rating
will be null and void – however it is good
practice to always bolt a safe to a wall or
floor.
Once the final rating is awarded, a
certification plate should be displayed
either inside or on the safe. In order to
give customers, insurers and locksmiths
confidence that these ratings are
accurate and consistent across Europe,
the Association of Insurance Surveyors
(AiS) checks European test centres
for competency. Safes tested at an AiS
recognised testing centre to EN 14450
and above are allowed to display the ‘AiS
approved’ logo. This will be one of the
first things customers will look for.
Fire ratings are a slightly hotter topic
of debate, as they are usually expressed
in terms of how long the interior of the
safe maintains a temperature below the
threshold in which paper combusts.
A higher fire rating is taken for safes
designed to store digital/magnetic media
and film which are more sensitive to
heat. When storing cash and documents,
the strict fire test of EN 15659 is the
one to look for as this provides a
more thorough test than others in the
market.