Critique my plan for a wall safe (long, plenty of detail)

In My Humble Opinion
1

From limited research, it seems that the advantage to a wall safe over a floor safe or a large burglar-rated safe, is that it is easier to use on a regular basis. Disadvantages include that they are relatively easy to find and relatively easy to just take out of the wall and remove (if you are a burglar). Also they aren’t very deep, but that’s OK for me, what I want to put in the safe will fit fine in a regular safe for a wall using 4" studs (actual depth 3.5"). Here’s the plan (not absolutely complete, as you will see).

The wall between the garage and the downstairs room next to the garage uses 6" (5.5") studs. The indoor side of this wall is partly a mudroom area, and partly a large-ish storage closet under the L-shaped stairs to the main level. The top part of the wall in the closet has a closet rail along the entire length, stuffed with coats and things we don’t use (but can’t discard for reasons). I thought this would be a good place for the safe.

Once I have opened up the space for the safe (or the safe space, if you will) I am considering installing a 1/4" steel plate on the back of the space (inside the garage-side drywall) by cutting vertical slots in the studs, attached (somehow, not sure yet) on the inside of the space. This is to make it harder to get at the safe from the garage side, if the burglars discover its location but can’t get in from the front. Then I would install the safe in the same way, cutting vertical slots in the studs so the side flanges could fit, rather than installing the safe with the flanges on the outside of the inner wall. Otherwise, the safe would be installed in the normal way. So the safe would be completely enclosed within the two drywall sides of the wall, probably with a little depth left over.

Then I would re-create the inner wall in such a way as to minimize any seams to casual observation (not sure yet how) and with a catch that can only be opened by someone who knows how (also not sure yet what kind of switch or how).

To use the safe, I would have to take out a section of the clothing on the closet rail, release the catch, and unlock the safe, and do all that in reverse when I’m done.

This may be overkill, the monetary value of what I want to store may not be worth it, but what I am hoping for here is a critique of this approach, and suggestions for improving the details, or filling in the details I haven’t thought through yet. If you’ve read this far, you must be fascinated by the subject, so maybe you have some ideas.

2

Have you considered a concealed compartment, or even a secret room?

I’m not kidding.

3

That doesn’t sound all that easy or convenient, but I’m pretty lazy.

Have you considered a decent gun safe? They are easy and convenient to use, they are designed to protect the contents from house fires and they are way too heavy for a couple of burglars to drag off. Ours has a way to drill big holes through the floor and then anchor it to the house foundation, but we haven’t bothered.

Anchor one to the back corner of your garage, throw an old blanket over it and anchor the boxes down with a few storage boxes. Everyone will think its an old fridge, not worth bothering with.

4

I’ve considered it, and I love the idea, but this is a small San Francisco house and there isn’t any space for a secret room. I’m not sure what you mean by a concealed compartment. I have seen such things as fake electric outlets and fake light switches, to fake electric service panel (fuse box). Some are too small, and I don’t have confidence in the ones I’ve seen.

A gun safe might be easier, if the lock is secure and difficult to pick or outwit. I don’t have a lot of confidence in locks if the burglar happens to be an expert in such things. I really don’t know how often that happens in real life (as opposed to Youtube videos). Also, I don’t have a lot of confidence in “hide in plain sight” as you suggest. But I will check into this further, thanks.

5

I have one of the small round floor safes that I keep a few important things in and a few thousand in emergency cash, I generally like the floor safes more for concealment and difficulty to remove if they are discovered. Otherwise I don’t see any tremendous problem with your plans. For serious burglars a wall safe is never going to be all that safe because they will just usually be too easy to yank out of the wall and carry off.

@JaneDoe42 there isn’t really a gun safe a couple burglars can’t steal. It all depends on the environment around the house, but if they have 15+ minutes of free access no gun safe is truly safe. A friend of mine had a very large, expensive and heavy gun safe. When his house was robbed they tied chains to it and hooked it up to the axle of the truck they brought (my friend’s security cameras caught it all on tape) and then they dragged it out of the house. It did tremendous damage to the house being ripped around, tearing up walls and door frames and doing damage to the floor.

My friend lived in a rural house where you couldn’t see his home from the road and no neighbors have a clear sight line on his house, so the burglars were able to really stay and clean it out. It’s very difficult for any form of safe to entirely protect against that scenario, which is why I think often times concealment is the best approach.

6

A floor safe might be okay. But here’s what we have: two floors of living space, with wooden floors, and in between floors and ceilings every foot is covered with a network of pex tubes of water that heats the house (hydronic heating system). Below those floors there is a crawl space with a concrete floor. Since the house is built on a hill and the crawl space was not dug out, the crawl space goes from 10’ high at the back (where there’s a door) to less than a foot high in the front. I might be able to dig into the concrete floor of the crawl space, since it probably isn’t tied into the foundation, but I don’t know how I would conceal a safe there. I did have a sort of homemade hidey-hole there for a while, but it didn’t feel safe or secure to me. However, I will keep a floor safe in mind, I might be able to figure something out.