When security is your top priority a vault room can’t be beat. Concrete with rebar is much more secure than any gun safe could be even at a standard 8in thickness. Many homeowners upgrade to 10in walls or even thicker for their vault rooms. A heavy duty vault door will be much thicker than any standard gun safe at a much better price. Our Extreme series vault door has a 1” thick steel plate - much heavier than any safe. In contrast, most safes have a body with ¼” (or thinner!). Not only that, even when anchored to the floor , someone can still rip a safe out with enough force. Without serious construction equipment, no one is moving a whole vault room.

Many safe manufacturers boast about their fire ratings and the minutes of protection. But a vault room offers much more protection than a safe. The concrete wall is a huge upgrade in fire protection, stopping all smoke and flame. A vault door, like our Magnum door, has a thick steel door skin that resists warping under extreme heat. All Smith vault doors have a fire seal that expands to 9x its original size to keep out smoke and flame. A ceramic fiber upgrade insulates the door from the extreme temperatures of a fire even more! Although most safes have similar fire seals and insulation they lack one big feature - space! A safe is a tiny steel box that is easy to heat up - that's why it has to have so many layers of fire protection. A vault room has much more air and concrete to heat than a tiny safe. This makes a vault able to stand even the hottest fires for hours with no damage to anything inside.

Have you ever wanted to step inside a gun safe for protection? Me neither. Even if you could fit inside, it would be a bit claustrophobic! Here the vault room shines again. From the closet sized room up to the 20ft x 40ft behemoth, a vault room offers more space for protection. Are you a gun collector or dealer that has thousands of dollars in guns? A walk in safe room is the way to go. We have customers that can safely store thousands of guns and themselves in a vault room. We also have customers that are looking for a safe spot to take their family in the event of a tornado or home invasion. A vault door wins in this category.

The best time to build a vault room is when you’re already going to build new or remodel an existing home or business. One of the main reasons that people put in a vault door? They already have a vault room - right underneath the porch! Builders used to backfill the area under the porch with gravel for drainage. But gravel is expensive, and now it's simple to bring the basement all the way under the porch. Adding the 4th wall with a rough opening hole for a vault door adds very little cost. The best part is that the ceiling will already be concrete, since the porch was being poured there anyway. At that point, the cost of the concrete is the same as the backfill gravel. The last step is to add a vault door, which isn’t much more expensive than a safe - with 10 or 100x the space.

Some businesses need more protection than others. Gun dealers, money counters, dispensaries to name a few. In these scenarios a vault room is ideal. Most businesses are not located in someone's home. This makes the business a better target for would-be thieves. The response time will be slower, either waiting on the police, or even worse, finding out the next morning. A vault room is ideal because it provides much higher security that slows any criminal. At that point, they're more likely to get caught or get scared off. A vault room also allows for significant upgrades over a safe. You can add a day gate like this day gate we built for a business recently (HYPERLINK or picture). A day gate allows businesses with high traffic to operate with some security during the day. Then at night, they can close the vault door for the most security. Opening a vault door 20 times a day can be time consuming, a day gate is a simple solution. Another upgrade for businesses is a low-profile ramped threshold. Combine this with a removable door stop to allow for wheeled carts. A significant upgrade is to make a double door vault room like this double door vault we built for a customer.

If you want to build a vault room but you’re concerned you may move some day, don’t worry. The house is worth more with a vault room installed. In today's chaotic world, this type of rare security will add extra value to your home. A new would-be owner might have the same storm, fire, or security concerns that you do. A vault door adds the peace of mind that everyone wants at home. On top of that - a vault room has a WOW factor, making your home stand out from the rest.

Now that we’ve hit on the main benefits of a vault room, let's look at the benefits of a safe.