Most people come to a key safe for the same reason. Someone they care about needs help at home, carers are coming in once or twice a day, and nobody wants three or four sets of keys in circulation. A key safe solves that neatly.
It also worries people, and the worry is fair enough. You are fixing a box to the outside wall with a key to the house inside it. So it is worth getting the details right, and most of them are simple.
Not all key safes are the same
This is the part that matters most and the part people skip. A key safe is a security product, and like locks, some are tested and some are not.
Look for one certified to LPS 1175 Security Rating 1, or to Sold Secure, and ideally one carrying the Police Preferred Specification badge through Secured by Design. Those marks mean the safe has been attacked under test conditions by people who know what they are doing, and held up. An untested box off a shelf has not been through any of that.
If a care package is being arranged, ask the care provider or the occupational therapist what they need. Many services specify a police-approved key safe as a condition, and it saves buying twice.
Where it goes
Not beside the front door at eye height, which is where most of them end up.
A key safe wants to be out of the eyeline from the pavement, round a corner, behind a downpipe, on the side return. Somewhere a carer can find it in ten seconds and a passer-by never notices at all.
It needs solid masonry behind it. Render over insulation, timber cladding and hollow blockwork all give way under a decent pull, and a key safe that comes off the wall in one piece is worse than no key safe at all. If we are not confident about what is behind the surface, we will say so and find a better spot.
Think about who is actually using it, too. Carers arrive in the dark for a good part of the year. A safe fitted low down behind a bush is a nuisance at eight in the morning in January.
If the property is rented, or the wall is part of a shared stair, have a word with the landlord or factor before anything gets drilled.
One key, and nothing else
Put in the key that opens the front door. That is all.
Not the whole bunch. Not the back door key as well. And nothing with an address or a name on it, no fobs, no tags, no labels. If a key safe is ever opened by the wrong person, the difference between one anonymous key and a labelled set is the difference between an inconvenience and a serious problem.
The mistake that undoes the whole thing
The code gets set on the day it goes on the wall, and then it never changes.
Over a couple of years a care package might involve a dozen different people. Agencies change. Staff move on. Family members come and go. Every one of them remembers a four-digit code, and none of them are doing anything wrong by remembering it.
Change the code whenever the people change. It takes a minute, it costs nothing, and it is the single most useful habit around a key safe. If nobody has changed yours since it was fitted, change it this week.
A key safe is only as good as the lock it opens
This is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to spend money in the wrong place.
Fitting a well-made key safe to a front door with a twenty-year-old cylinder in it is a bit like putting a good padlock on a gate with a rotten post. If the door itself is the weak point, that is where the money should go first, and repairing or upgrading the lock comes before anything else. A quick look at the door will tell you which of the two you are actually dealing with.
Worth a word with your insurer
Policies vary, and some ask to be told about how keys are held. A two-minute call before anything is fitted is easier than a conversation afterwards.
If you are arranging this for someone
You are usually doing it at a busy time, often at short notice, and often from a distance. It does not need to be complicated. A tested key safe, in a sensible spot, on a solid wall, with one key inside and a code that gets changed when the people change, covers almost everything that goes wrong.
If you want a hand working out where it should go, or you are not sure what is behind the wall, give us a ring on 07890 295804. There is no call-out fee, our no fix no fee promise applies, and we will agree a clear price before any work begins.