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I think most people at some point during their shopping experience for a gun safe see the fire rating on a safe, but also wonder if they are also going to be waterproof!
Unfortunately fire safes are not normally waterproof. Gun safes are not waterproof for nearly the same reason that a safe is also not air tight, because they have holes all throughout the safe.
Where does water get into the safe?
What, there are holes in my safe? Yep. The first one you may not know about is the hole in the back, where the dehumidifier goes in.
Secondly, many safes will also have a hole in the top of the safe. This is where it is hauled around the factory while being built.
Thirdly, the massive hole that is the door. While there is a seal that expands in most doors when a fire happens, it by no means is completely sealed when under normal circumstances, and doesn’t keep out water.
What safes are waterproof?
While generally speaking, a gun safe isn’t waterproof, there are some safes out there that offer this feature.
The first that comes to mind is Stack-On with their Total Defense Series. While I don’t normally recommend a Stack-On safe on this site, this series is one of their better ones, and is one of the few safes in the whole industry that offers a fire rating.
You can find a great price on the Total Defense here.
If the Total Defense doesn’t quite work for you, I stumbled upon another gun safe that offers this feature! The Wasatch safes are a mid-low range gun safe like Stack-On, but they also offer a waterproof rating.
Finally, if you aren’t in need a full-size gun safe, there is the Sentry Safe SFW123CS that is basically a home safe. It offers both a fire rating and a waterproof rating. A great place to buy it is here.
How to make your current safe waterproof?
Okay, so you may never really have your safe become truly waterproof, but you can take some added precautions if this is something you worry about.
If this were a concern of mine, I would recommend doing the following.
1. Raise the safe off the ground.
Add a little bit of height to the safe. If you can build yourself a little platform out of wood, or cement, you should be able to get yourself a couple extra inches of height on the safe.
This will mean if your basement floods, it will not immediately flood into your gun safe and allow you to have time to react.
2. Seal off the safe
I would take some time to seal off any holes on the safe that can be sealed. As mentioned earlier, the dehumidifier hole in the back is a great place to start, as well as the hole in the top of the safe.
3. Put your safe on the second story
The best thing you can do, is to put your safe where you don’t have to worry about water.
A second story on a home is going to be the best place to do this! However make sure you keep in mind that a safe is crazy heavy, and you should be double sure that floor can handle the weight of the safe before doing that.
4. Keep water damageable items in a waterproof bag
While this doesn’t fix everything, make sure to keep any small items like paper and electronics that can be damaged by water in a waterproof bag. Something like this one should work great.
Conclusion
While there are unfortunately not many gun safes on the market today that are waterproof, I hope this article pointed out a few that will work for you!
If neither of those worked, I hope some ideas were also given to help you make the best of the situation with your current safe!
Don’t have a safe yet?
If you liked reading through this article, I would highly recommend you read through the article about the best safes of the year by clicking the button below.
Editors Note: This article was originally written in March of 2019, but has since been updated for accuracy and to further discuss the subject.
