About Sturdy Fireproof Safes

Up to 4.5"of 2300° Ceramic Wool & Glass Blanket

Sturdy Gun Safe uses 2300 degree, 8 lb. density ceramic wool and glass blanket for our fire lined gun safes. We feature 2 1/2" of ceramic insulator compressed (with a 16g liner) to 2 1/4" for the right, left, back wall, and door jambs. This prevents the material from shaking downward. The top and bottom will have 2.5" of ceramic insulator and 2" of glass blanket. The door will have 2.5" of ceramic insulator and 1" glass blanket. This insulator duo is designed to keep heat out with virtually the same engineering used to keep heat in for extreme heat ovens and kilns. This true insulator is not cheap and will not loose structural integrity even after a fire. Unlike other insulators, ceramic can easily fit into the tightest of places without having open seam problems. With all this insulating material, it's no wonder why we have one of the best fireproof gun safes currently on the market. In addition, the 16g liner adds more strength in the shelving, which is way better than our competitors drilling their shelving into weak Sheetrock covered with a felt liner.

Quick video of the amount of effort and fire insulation that goes into a fire lined Sturdy Safe.

What Is Our Fire Rating?

We can confidently tell you that our fire lined gun safe will out perform the majority of RSC safes on the market because we have tested in real house burn downs and have gone through multiple accidental burn downs (1 hour 20 min burn) with success. As far as fire ratings go, we do not offer one. This is simply because we don't want to mislead people like most safe companies do with their customers. When you see a fire rating on a RSC that holds long guns, the manufacturer did one of two things:

Made up the rating and never had it tested.
Took their safe to a facility that was not UL and request them to eliminate testing with cool down time and point of no return (which UL will not do) in order to make the safe test well.

Please note the following:

To make your search for a UL Fire Rated RSC (residential security safe) easier, know there is not one that currently exists on the market that is a long gun safe.
Having a UL RSC rating does not mean the safe is also UL Fire Rated.
Having a UL Fire Rating on the fire insulator being used does not mean the safe itself is UL Fire Rated. If this was the case we would say our safe was UL Fire Rated for 2300 degrees indefinitely and steel melts before then.
If a realistic fire rating is important to you, it's best you find a UL Fire rated safe (they tend to be a lot smaller in size and quite a bit of money).

We would like to be UL Fire rated since UL (Underwriters Laboratories) are the only honest testing facility by giving you a realistic burn time, but they want too much money to do it, and customers would still be comparing us to gun safes with misleading ratings.

gun safe fire gasket

Custom Fit Door Gasket

Sturdy Fire Safes use UL tested intumescent fire calking that is covered by a custom fit boiler gasket. This boiler gasket is designed for high temp ovens and kilns. The LCI Firestop Sealant is designed to prevent the spread of fire, smoke, toxic fumes and moisture for up to 3 hours and expanding to eight times its normal capacity. It's doubled the width of our competitors fire gaskets for 2x better coverage and protection. A custom fit fire gasket is important for a fireproof safe because clearance between the door and the door seat cannot be made to fit exactly the same every time. A one sized gasket like the commonly used Palusol cannot fit all safes perfectly without needing to be heated up first to fill the gaps. Little information is available online about Palusol, but here is some more information an independent did on how Palusol door seals perform in garages.

This video shows how to apply a Sturdy Safe fire gasket.

WHY IT'S OPTIONAL:

Pictures Of A Non Fire Lined Sturdy Safe In A Partial Burn Down

Fire resistant safes are not for everyone. The benefit with Sturdy Safe is if you don't need it, you don't need to pay for it. If you are working with a strict budget, it's far better to get our safe uninsulated then settle on a thinner steeled safe lined with sheetrock that won’t help you much in the way of fire or security. At least you would be gaining the security with our thick steel. If your insurance covers everything inside the safe anyway, and you would be happy to get replacement items, then you may not want the fire liner option. Other reasons include: if you are located within a five mile radius of the fire department and have a quick response time, if the safe will be placed in a low burn zone area such as an encased brick area, and if you have a sprinkler system over the safe. For our customers with smaller objects that need fire protection but don’t want to pay the costly fee of our insulator, we recommend they get a UL rated fire box to place inside the safe or make their own ceramic lined fire box. The box will perform better than stated because the safe will be protecting it from the radiant heat. The pictures above show we have actually had one of our non fire lined safes successfully go through an accidental partial burn down (the safe was in the worst part of the fire) with a response time of 13 minutes. It still wouldn't perform as well as our insulated safe, but it goes to show you the thick steel and size (the larger, the better it will perform) does offer slight fire resistance. Read more about this unlined Sturdy Safe that survived a house fire.

HOW WE TESTED OUR FIRE SAFES:

Some safe companies test their fire proof safes in controlled testing furnaces which perform like oversized house ovens yet get a lot hotter than your normal oven. These safe companies eliminate 2 important factors when testing their gun safes to get those ratings: Point Of No Return, and Cool Down Time. Read more about how Sturdy Safe vs. other gun safe companies test for fire ratings.

WHY MOST FIRE SAFE INSULATORS DON'T WORK GOOD ENOUGH:

fire board sheetrock gun safes

Sheetrock / Fire Board

Regardless of their fire ratings, they won’t perform as claimed. One must understand how safe manufacturers test safes for fire to understand how testing facilities come up with those inaccurate fire ratings. UL will tell you not to bother testing safes for fire resistance lined with fire board. Read more about Fire Board being a terrible gun safe insulator.

ceramic fire liner for gun safes

2300 Degree Ceramic

Even though this material is the best fire insulator, the problem lies in the manufacturer not giving you enough of it. Some do as little as lining just the top of the safe due to its high cost. See the difference between Sturdy Safe's ceramic application vs. other gun safes ceramic application.

cement liner that dry light for gun safes

Cement and "Light Cement"

UL actually gives decent fire and security ratings to safes lined with real cement (like in certain high security TL safes). The problem with real cement liners is the cost of the safe itself as well as their extreme weights. Don't get real cement liners confused with light weight dry "cement" composite fire insulation.

STURDY SAFES IN MULTIPLE ACCIDENTAL BURNS:

Burn #1

A long time ago a man named Stan lost his house to a fire. A volunteer fire department reported to the blaze but there wasn't much left to save. See how our model 3627-6 gun safe survived a house burn with ease.

Burn #2

In 2017 there were two Sturdy Safes involved in a 100% complete burn down. A volunteer fire department reported to the blaze but couldn't get any water to the house. No long gun safes currently on the market are designed to survive a burn down like this. Watch the video, or go to the fire safe page for the complete story.