Thread: Gun Safe Advise
View Single Post
Old January 8, 2011, 04:39 AM   #36
Adirondack
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 28, 2009
Posts: 107
Quote:
Let's say you take 2 identical candles. Place one inside of a shoe box, and the other inside of a refrigerator box. Which box will heat faster?

A small space will heat much, much faster than a large space. The insulation on a large container has to work less than the insulation on a small container (even though most safes are build the same regardless of their size).
Heat is evenly distributed to all sides of both containers during testing so the vault has much more energy to resist in order to pass the test than the smaller safe.

I do admit that the natural air convection in the much larger vault does help delay the temperature rise within the chamber but I did say it is an apples to oranges comparison. The interior of the vault can hold everything used in its construction 4 times over but the safe can't even hold a quarter of it's own constructing material so for efficient fire protection of a large collection, the ceramic fiber lined vault is far better than the safe.

Quote:
If you assume fiber insulation is better, why would companies not make the switch? I can think of many, but heres a few.
#1. Old habits die hard. Maybe an overused expression but true.
#2. They are already set up and tooled to do it this way and change costs money.
#3. The marketplace is not screaming for change. Heck the average Joe doesn't even take that much notice of fire ratings.
#4. Why change and admit someone else was doing it better all along.
I think those are some of the reasons north1. It's also expensive as compared to drywall or concrete. The cost of the insulation alone for what Sturdy puts on it's gun safe is almost 200 dollars. Add to that the 14ga liner that needs to be fabricated and then the labor required for installation all of which doesn't leave you much room to make any money on the option. Compare that to fire rated 5/8" drywall that can be bought at retail for less than 9 dollars a sheet or concrete that is about $100 per yard right now (no where near that needed in an average safe).

Even Amsec admitted when asked by someone who called from an earlier discussion that they don't use the same insulating material on their fire safes as they do for their other safes. Their fire safes use a vermiculite concrete mix whereas their other security or burglary and fire safes use a denser mix which is great for security but bad for preventing heat transfer. So to your point about the average Joe not taking much notice to the fire rating, I think these safe companies likely recognize that and are building their products with that in mind.
__________________
...probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in the white house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone.
John F. Kennedy, Describing a dinner for Nobel Prize winners, 1962

Last edited by Adirondack; January 8, 2011 at 04:48 AM.
Adirondack is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02898 seconds with 8 queries