Ensure Your Buying the Best Vault Door
Select the perfect vault door for your vault room in five simple steps.
The time has finally come! You get to build the vault room of your dreams, and the best part of the project is choosing the vault door to tie it all together! Or, maybe you’re a builder and looking to add a nice addition to a custom or spec home for your future clients. Either way, choosing a vault door can be a confusing process, and knowing where to start and what to look for is a daunting task for many.
Since our business was founded in 1988, we have sold and installed hundreds of vault doors. We have seen customers design the vault room of their dreams and projects go awry. Needless to say, we have learned more than a few things about vault doors.
In this post, we’ll share our basic guidelines for choosing the right vault door based on your project and overall security goals.
Buying the Best Vault Door in 5 Steps
We’re going to dive into these steps below, but here’s the quick and clean version.
1. Choose Your Door As Early as Possible
If your project is new construction, you’ll want to pick out your door well before the building process begins. This will give you the best opportunity to:
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Choose from the Biggest Selection of Doors
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Ensure Your Builder or Contractor Has Necessary Details
Remodeling an existing room into a vault room can be a trickier process, but it’s far from impossible. We can evaluate your current rough opening dimensions to determine which doors would fit your current space or any modifications you may need to make to accommodate a vault door.
To make this remodeling project as successful as possible, you’ll want to pick your vault door during the design phase. If you’re hiring a builder or contractor for your project, we can work directly with them to make sure your project goes as smoothly as possible. If you need a recommended contractor, we have a network of trusted companies we’ve worked with for years to ensure privacy and security.
Selecting your vault door at the design phase will allow you to:
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Choose the Best Door for Your Space
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Ensure You Have the Necessary Rough Opening Details
If you haven’t caught on, the theme is pretty consistent: the earlier you select your vault door, the more successful the project will be.
The other advantage of selecting your door early is it allows us to make sure your exact door is ordered in a timely manner and arrives during the correct phase of construction. Need something ASAP? We regularly stock a nice selection of quality, American-made vault doors.
2. Determine Wall Construction and Materials
Now let’s talk about the structure in which your door will be installed. This is the first detail that will give you some idea of what level of door to invest in. For example, if you’re pouring an 8-inch to 10-inch concrete wall, a lightweight, low-security vault door wouldn’t make sense. In contrast, if you’re building your walls with wood and a light layer of steel, a commercial, high-security vault door wouldn’t make a ton of sense, either.
When we recommend vault doors to customers, we look at the overall goals regarding security, fire protection, and application features. Similar to choosing the right safe, we want to help you select a level of security that is consistent with the overall value you’re storing.
3. Determine In-Swing or Out-Swing (based on needs/space)
Depending on your space and desired use, the next determination to make would be selecting an in-swing vault door or out-swing vault door. Both types of doors serve different purposes for different reasons.
In-Swing Vault Doors
In-swing doors are often selected so a would-be intruder can’t blockade the door from the outside. In-swing models also allow for a facade or false front covering the door. Often, these facades are bookcases or other decorative pieces, such as mirrors.
These decorative disguises work with an in-swing door because the hardware is recessed. Thanks to the recessed design, it doesn’t protrude and inhibit any carpentry work on the outside. We’ve seen some very creative designs over the years so let your imagination run wild.
Depending on where the room is located and the location of the door, your door swing is often determined for you. For example, a wall directly to the left of the rough opening will prohibit the full door swing of a left-hand hinge. A full door swing is needed to utilize the full clear opening of the vault door. In an instance such as this, the customer would need a right-hand hinge.
5. Choose Desired Vault Door Features
Once we’ve narrowed down your selection to the vault doors that would fit your space and security needs the real fun begins — the design! All of the doors we carry are made in America. They offer varying price points, design features, and levels of customization.
Fort Knox: Custom Vault Doors
Many customers are looking for a centerpiece in a den, game room or shop. We can build you a custom door from Fort Knox that provides you with a blank slate when it comes to paint and aesthetics.
These custom doors also allow you to add layers of steel and exotic metals, such as stainless steel and AR500. (AR500 is a high-carbon steel alloy that's known for its hardness, toughness, and resistance to wear and tear.) We can even put your name, brand or company on the door for an added touch.
Fort Knox also offers many different lock options including mechanical, electronic, biometric, and redundant lock work for the best of both worlds.
American Security: Best-Selling Vault Door (& Most Affordable)
For a simple and clean look, we carry two different doors by American Security (aka AMSEC). These two doors are our best-selling and most affordable, available in ¼-inch and ½-inch solid plate steel.
A variety of texture finishes are available. You also have the choice of mechanical, electronic, and biometric locks.
Rhino Metals: Old School Cool
Rhino Metals is veteran-owned and based in Idaho. They build a quality door with an Ironworks finish. This old school appearance has been one of our most popular doors to date. The rivets and distressed look give it the appearance of having stood the test of time. At the same time, the plate steel backs it up with robust security.
Liberty Safe: Dependable Security
Liberty offers two different levels of vault doors:
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Blockade — Liberty’s basic model, the Blockade is often preferred in projects with lightweight framing.
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The Beast — Liberty’s higher security vault door, The Beast boasts a solid ½-inch flat bar mechanism and the quickest panic room option available in the industry. The Beast has long been our choice for security and fire protection while also providing for a polished look in many different marble and gloss finishes.
Purchase a Vault Door
When it comes to choosing the right vault door for your particular needs, we’re here to help. If you’d like to schedule an appointment to come into one of our showrooms, please fill out the form so we have the appropriate information available when you arrive.