Thread: Gun Safe Advise
View Single Post
Old January 7, 2011, 10:27 AM   #29
a1abdj
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 28, 2005
Location: St. Charles, MO
Posts: 496
Quote:
As per the testing standard, heat is applied to all sides including the floor for both the vault and safe.
Ok. Including the floor of each unit, each square foot of surface area exposed to heat on the safe is protecting .11 cubic feet of air space inside. Each square foot of surface area exposed to heat on the vault is protecting 2.3 cubic feet of air space inside.

Instead of the safe having to perform 25 times better in the previous example, it only has to perform 20 times better if heat is applied to all 6 sides instead of 5.

Quote:
I know the example is an apples to oranges comparison but you asked to see it.
It's not apples and oranges at all. I'm assuming that the ceramic insulation in the safe will perform the same as the ceramic insulation in a vault wall. Inch for inch, the ceramics are doing the exact same job.

In your examples, the safe has about 3.5" of cast fill on each wall, in addition to 3.5" of ceramic insulation. The vault has 6" of insulation. This means that the 3.5" of fill in the safe is now doing the job of 2.5" of ceramic in the vault.

We know that by your very own example, that the safe is doing 20 times the work, and the ceramics are doing the same job, therefore I can make a wild guess that it's the cast insulation doing the heavy lifting (as I have always said).

3.5" of cast insulation (in this case) is 20 times as effective as 2.5" of ceramic. If my math is correct, it would take 14" of ceramic insulation to accomplish the same task as 1" of cast insulation.

Of course all of these numbers aren't based on much fact, just your examples. The do however prove what I have been saying all along. Cast insulations are more effective than ceramic insulations which is why every UL listed safe uses them, and very few manufacturers use it at all, except as a secondary insulation.

Quote:
Steam especially a high pressure superheated steam that's likely to be in a gun safe protected by gypsum or even concrete can damage the contents as well so it should be a consideration when selecting a gun safe or any safe/vault for that matter.
Gypsum will let off moisture in fire. Many of the cast insulations in document safes will let off moisture. As you get into fire/burglary safes, and UL listed burglary safes, the insulation is actually a burglary barrier as well, and tends to have a much lower moisture content.

You can also get external moisture into a safe during a fire. The insulation isn't your only enemy when you have fire hoses involved.
__________________
www.zykansafe.com
a1abdj is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02394 seconds with 8 queries