If you’re considering increasing the security capabilities of your home with a safe room, you’re thinking smart. Having a safe room adds value to your home and security for your family and valuables. But where do you start? Can you just add a vault door to any interior room and call it a safe room?

We’re going to discuss creating an effective safe room in your home. The most important things to consider when creating a safe room are the hardening of an existing door, installing an actual vault door, and determining what to keep inside your safe room.

A safe room is a dedicated room inside your house that is meant to keep your family safe during a crisis until help arrives. This could be a bathroom, a home office, or your basement. A safe room can be as simple as a room with upgraded door hardware to withstand someone trying to kick the door down to a fully encapsulated room that is bulletproof and fireproof.

Barricading yourself and your family inside a safe room during a home intrusion is a last ditch effort to stay alive. Doing so leaves little doubt legally (in a self-defense claim) if the door is breached and you are forced to shoot.

There are many different types of safe rooms that you can build. Everything from upgrading the door on an interior room to a fully encapsulated room with concrete and reinforced steel. The level of security for a safe room largely depends on your budget.

Design and construction of a safe room begins with the door. Most interior home doors are hollow core. Hollow core doors are essentially hollow inside with the exception of some cellular cardboard material wrapped in a wood veneer. On top of that, they typically have a very simple door knob with no lock. This setup will only take an intruder one or two kicks to breach. With that said, let’s talk about fortifying a safe room door.

If you’re on a tighter budget, here’s what you can do to fortify your safe room door.

• Upgrade from a hollow-core to solid core door ($50 to $250)
• Install a deadbolt locking mechanism (~$40)
• Reinforce the strike plate with 3” general construction screws (~$6 for a pack)
• If you want to take up a level from just replacing the screws, you can install a security latch strike plate which uses six 3” screws.

If you have the budget to work with, you could just replace the original interior door with a vault door. If you’re serious about getting a vault door, consider the following features.

• Multiple steel locking lugs
• Hardened steel construction to protect against drilling and other brute force attacks
• Pry-resistant handle
• Able to be installed in standard rough openings

The new Lockdown Logic Vault Door is the most technologically advanced vault door on the market. The same monitoring technology that is built into our Puck is also part of the new vault door. In addition to what The Puck monitors, the new vault door also monitors for incorrect entry codes being tried as well as tamper & impact alarms.

With your safe room now secured, the next question is what to keep inside a safe room. What you keep inside is dependent upon the situations you’re planning on using the safe room for and what you’re trying to protect.

Here are a few must haves for every safe room.

Phone charger that is not dependent on grid power

• • If your home has lost power, you need to be able to keep your phones charged in order to communicate with first responders and other emergency contacts.

Medical kit

• • Having the ability to deal with medical emergencies is critical. Be able to manage cuts & scrapes, bleeding, and burns. Put together a kit to serve the size of your family and get training.

Fire extinguisher

• • It’s always a good idea to have a fire extinguisher inside your safe room.

Flashlights

• • The last thing you want to do is sit in the dark, especially if you have kids. Have a flashlight or some other type of battery powered lighting device for each person to use.

Personal defense weapons (recommended but not necessary)

• • In a worst-case scenario, if your safe room door were to get breached, you need to be able to defend your life and the lives of others in the room. Whether it’s a concealed carry handgun, a home defense shotgun, a can of mace, or even a fire extinguisher, you should have something readily available.

If your safe room is a more hardened room in your basement for surviving other natural disasters, then you may want to add food and water provisions, extra blankets, and extra clothing. Whatever your family requirements are going to be for a 72-hour time period, make sure that is stored inside your safe room.

Uncertainty in the form of pandemics, civil unrest, a shaky economy, and unpredictable government policies breeds a mindset of preparedness in many people. People are starting to keep emergency supplies of cash, precious metals, ammunition, and firearms as an insurance policy against the unforeseen.

Keeping those items secure is sometimes an afterthought. You can no longer just keep valuables stored under a bed or in a closet somewhere in your house. You’re going to need to identify a safe room in your house and take the necessary steps in securing that room; primarily the single point of entry; the door, as we discussed above.

The ATF defines secure storage as “a safe, gun safe, gun case, lock box, or other device that is designed to be or can be used to store firearms and is designed to be unlocked only by means of a key, a combination, or other similar means.”

The Lockdown Logic Vault Door meets and exceeds the ATF’s recommendations for secure storage of your ammunition, firearms, and other valuables.

When seconds count, first responders are minutes away. Ensure your safety and survival by hardening your existing safe room door or upgrading to a vault door. If you’re unsure where to start, contact Lockdown today. We’ve got you covered.