doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Residential walk-in vault

Hi All,

I've just bought a house in Denver, and as part of moving from my townhouse in Virginia to a "real" house I have decided it is time to move my 40-odd long gun collection from storing in a commercial storage locker to a safe at home.

(And yes, I know that most of the so-called "gun safes" are not true safes but are actually "Residential Security Containers," but I am going to call them "safes" just to keep things simple).

Since the rules of thumb seem to be buy a bigger safe than you think you need and that safes never hold as many guns as the manufacturer claims, I am looking at safes that hold upwards of 50 long guns, or buying two medium-size safes.

Whether one big safe or two medium safes, the cost is getting pretty high. Especially since I want to buy something that is high quality, just short of "true safe" territory.

A few friends have suggested that a walk-in residential vault may be a better way for me to go considering the kind of money I would be spending on a good and big safe. I do have a location that would be ideal for a vault. However, I've yet to talk to anyone who actually has a vault, and so haven't heard anyone's personal experience with a vault. Additionally, Denver doesn't appear to have any local companies that build residential vaults that I could talk to.

Does anyone here keep their guns in a residential vault, and can they share their experience with me? Benefits? Detriments? Costs?

(feel free to PM me if you don't want to publicly discuss your home security systems).

Thanks.

--shinbone

I was recently in the home of a collector with something similar to what you describe. He'd added the vault to his ground floor (the home was a split level) when he built an addition. It was fully finished, so I can't comment on the construction materials, had a security gate akin to those on retail establishments, which was concealed behind two normal french doors. Two walls of the room were lined with rifle racks, with the long guns standing vertically. The rear wall had two revolving standing rifle racks. One front wall had a glass enclosed set of shelves, probably out of a retail store somewhere, on which handguns were stored. I'd estimate the room was about 12'x15' - it was big enough for a pool table in the center - and there were well over 100 guns displayed. It was quite an impressive setup.

I have a builder friend who put a gun storage vault in his basement constructed out of re-inforced concrete. He also had located a used bank vault door and had it installed. It's a walkin of course and one of the most impressive storage facilities I've ever seen.
When I inquired about cost he just shrugged it off.
jim

Yes, I have built one, and was very satisfifed with it. Built in a basement area adjacent to a study and a workshop, walls AND CEILING of poured reinforced concrete, used the existing slab basement floor. Mine was not that large, about 7' x 7' inside dimensions plus another 3' x 3' joining that which held very heavy shelving for ammo storage. I bought a Browning brand vault door and it was quite satisfactory, IMO. My vault had commercial carpeting on the floor and on the concrete walls, to help protect barrels against accidental bumps. Fully wired, of course, and I also devised an air circulation system that used a single 100 watt light bulb with a salvaged fan from a computer blowing the somewhat heated air upward and around the room. Worked like a fan forced "goldenrod" device, and worked very well. This unit held about 60 guns in a combination of wall and floor mounts, plus thousands of rounds of ammo. Since a son and I did all the work, my cost was only in the $3,500 range about 7 years ago. Prices are surely up somewhat today, and increasing the size could change that estimate as well. The reinforced concrete ceiling is just as important as the reinforced walls, IMO. If someone did locate your vault while you were away, they couldn't chop down through your upstairs floor and down into your vault. There are numerous makers of vault doors, I was happy with the Browning brand. Shipping the vault door to me from the dealer was not costly at all, but how near you are to a dealer can be a factor if you decide on a D I Y job. I would not hesitate to do something similar again. This vault was certainly not the quality of the one described above, but cost only slightly more than a much smaller gun safe would have cost me, and was very secure and completely satisfactory.

A friend built his house around an 8'x15' room made from steel reinforced concrete walls and ceiling intregal with the concrete slab. It has a vault door disguised as a regular door. Inside the room he has his old gunsafes which contain valuable books and his best guns. The rest of the guns are in wall racks. It didn't cost much as it was built before the house. It's a great set-up and has a substantial fire rating.

Are these people more interested in avoiding theft or fire and water damage? Is the average thief able to get into a gun safe?

You might try contacting Smith Gun Safes. http://www.smithsecuritysafes.com/

They are in Ohio, so I don't know about shipping. They do regular safes, in addition to security doors. They can provide yo good information, I'm sure. I have one of their safes, and am very pleased with it.

Seems like John Mann had a basement vault and ran into a severe problem of flooding.

Also, if there was a house fire, some kind of flood protection that didn't rely on electricity of a basement vault might come in handy. All that fire fighting water is gonna go somewhere. A bilge pump hooked to the house electrical system won't work in a big fire or storm that knocks out power.

We finished our new house 2 years ago. It was designed with a purpose built vault accessible via the basement garage. The 4 walls are 8" rebar-reinforced concrete. The house sits on top of it.
It has a steel vault door and 2-24 gun safes inside. It is big enough, 10x24, for a sofa, workbenchs, computer desk, reloading area, the safes, cable TV, and storage shelves.
I didn't wire it for networking. I opted for wireless. That was a mistake. Wireless quality really suffers getting into the vault.

Benefits, it is secure and readily available. Projects can be left out. It is safe from grandchildren's curiosity. It has doubled as an overflow bedroom for my father-in-law. There is a full bath in the garage next to the vault door. He doesn't even
have to come up the stairs except to eat.

Costs, it was available basement space, 2 sides are outside walls into a hillside, one is the fireplace foundation, the 4th wall was already reinforced to support my wife's AGA cooker (Her idea of parity for my SxS hobby). I just had to add 1/2 wall to the plans. So the cost was not much due to careful planning.

Detriments? None I can think of. I am still "fitting out" the space.

They make great man-caves or as my aged Aunt calls it "Joe's man-hole"

Joe

Thanks for bringing up the re-inforced concrete ceiling as this is absolutely necessary for secure storage.
It might be easier to get you wife to sign up for this if you made a place for secure jewelry storage for her.
If this were 20 years ago and I still had a large house with a basement I would consider building a combination secure wine/firearms storage facility. I had around a 2000 bottle wine celler back then and this was a huge financial investment. I used to worry more about the wine than my firearms collection.
I suspect that some unique heat and humidity control problems would have to be solved to do this as a combination facility but it sure would make for an interesting project.
Jim