Would you do this?

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So I bought my first house just about a year ago, and now that I'm getting settled, I'm starting to plan out what I am going to do for a "gun room" and a place to keep a safe.

I plan on keeping a very "small" safe in my bedroom, basically just big enough to keep home defense items in. However I need to get a safe large enough to keep all my other firearms, ammunition and valuables in. Here's my problem however, I dont have anywhere to put it, and I really want to get all my guns from my parents place. I have come up with really only one reasonable solution for a place to put it and I dont know how I feel about it.

Out behind my house is a reasonable sized "garage" that I plan on rewiring, insulating and totally doing over. I also will be putting a security system in it independent of the house. It sits literally all of 30ft maybe 40 max off the back of my house, but I dont know if I feel "safe" with it not being in the house. The front you see in the picture will all be concrete block with a security door and thats it. There are no windows or other entries on the building. Would you do this if it was your only option?
Heres the view from my back door, it looks much farther than it actually is
 

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If you are going to block those rotted doors in and use a security door then why not. The only down side I can think of is if I saw it and saw no garage door just a security door I would think there was something valuable in there and might make it a target.
 
If you are going to block those rotted doors in and use a security door then why not. The only down side I can think of is if I saw it and saw no garage door just a security door I would think there was something valuable in there and might make it a target.

Ya those rotted barn doors and the framed out section that is closed off on the right is all going to be removed and redone in block and then faced with matching siding. The section on the right will be the door. You have to be in my backyard to even know it's there as it literally sits directly in my back of my house. I don't know how this was ever a usable garage because it's in such an awkward spot.
 
Might need to put heat and a dehumidifier in it but it should make a nice gun/reloading room.
 
ehh, not me, i would come up with another plan. you'll have to heat or something to control humidity and rust right? At least by being in the house (excluding the basement depending on your set up) there would be some standard heat.

I have a problem putting guns that far from my house but that is me.... I guess if secured it would be ok. Not my thing.......find closet you can transform, put the safe in a back room...... garage??? you sure you putting the right stuff outside? take another inventory
 
How many guns/valuables do you have (no need to answer that)? [smile]

There's no room in the basement to construct even a smallish (4'x4'), solidly built gun storage space?
 
How many guns/valuables do you have (no need to answer that)? [smile]

There's no room in the basement to construct even a smallish (4'x4'), solidly built gun storage space?

Enough! [wink]

Basement gets wet, unfortunately. I have a ginormous walk up attic but I don't think it would support the size safe I want/have at my disposal, and getting it three stories up is waaaaaay beyond anything I would ever want to do. I really have no other place in my house to put any type of safe that would support my needs. This really is what I would consider my only option, but I feel shaky about it. As it is I already have one of my three bedrooms dedicated to sports collectables and even that is full some of it might end up in the garage! I need to liquidate!

as for heat I was planning on putting either electric baseboard or a small pellet stove in it that I would just have to feed every now and again.
 
I don't have a solution for you, but I wouldn't go with this idea. Climate control alone would be a bitch/expensive on such an outbuilding.
 
You're single, aren't you[smile].

One of the hardest things on the guns is temperature changes. The best place (IMHO) is the basement so long as the humidity is under control.
 
I would have to think that there's stuff you're storing in the house that could go in the out building without needing a somewhat climate controlled temp. Electric baseboard would get ridiculously expensive very quickly.
 
I would have to think that there's stuff you're storing in the house that could go in the out building without needing a somewhat climate controlled temp. Electric baseboard would get ridiculously expensive very quickly.

That's the problem there really isn't. Its not really a matter of space for storage it's a matter of being able to get the size safe I need to store not only guns but ammo, and valuables into an area in my house. My father has a spare safe I can have but it's more than likely too heavy to put on any type of wooden structure. His 10,000 lb skid steer was not happy moving it into his basement.
 
So you have a safe potentially available to you. Basement is available, but damp.

How damp is the basement? Are we talking high humidity or puddling? Are we talking continuous or after a hard rain?
How well can you seal the safe by adding weather stripping around the door and closing off any exterior holes?

Concrete blocks laid on their sides (looks like 2 squares when you look down on them) can form an extremely strong base. Cover with something equally strong and water resistant - that is slightly bigger than the safe. Put the congrete blocks under the cover piece to hold the safe 8-10" off the floor. Weather strip the safe and install a dehumidifying heater (like a golden rod) into the safe, sealing around the cord and then closing off any other holes in the safe. That will keep the air inside warm and the humidity outside out of the safe.

That should allow you to store the safe in the basement, raised up enough to prevent water intrusion into the safe.

If the basement really is that damp, strongly consider installing a "Foundation Drain" (also called a French Drain) to lower the water level around the house below the footings and away from the house. High humidty in the basement can lead to a large number of problems, including air-quality in the main part of the house, and if you can solve the humidity issue in the basement, user concrete blocks to build an 8' x 10' room with a security door. You'll have lots of space for firearms, ammunition, reloading equipment, powder and valuables.
 
Spend your money making the basement dry.

You'll be happier in the long run, and preserve the out building for other man toys!
 
I'm with those who wouldn't do this. Unless you can control climate very well, you're very likely to have a condensation/rust problem.

Then there is also the isolation. If it's as isolated as you say from the house, it would give somebody a good long time (and privacy) to try to defeat your security.

I'd put the sports memorabilia room in there before I'd put guns in there. If you wouldn't do that for fear that the collectables might stolen or damaged, I would assume the same for the firearms.
 
[laugh]

Hey man I'm a die hard bruins fan and have some pretty nice stuff. I gotta put it somewhere! Could be worse could be like the dildo I work with bragging to me about the pogs collection he picked up [laugh]

As for the basement it doesn't get damp in regards to the air, but this past week I had a skim coating of water on the floor. Now I can't tell if this is because of the immense amounts of rain and melting and it wont happen again or if it is typical. I haven't been here long enough to pick up on any trends. I'd love to use the basement, because it's empty, I dont store anything down there. Storage space isn't an issue, it's more of where can I safely put this mammoth safe I have. Getting it upstairs is pretty much impossible, due to weight. When I brought my new cast iron tub upstairs at 400lbs, we thought we were going to friggan die. So lugging several thousand lbs is out of the question. Not to mention if the house would even support it.
 
I have to agree with the others that an outbuilding would be my last choice for my firearms and/or valuables. Anyone interested in breaking into it would know it is unoccupied nearly all the time.

The H-blocks on the basement floor are a good idea. If the safe is huge, you may need to more than one goldenrod, or perhaps a peltier cooler based dehumidifier. Of course, that requires emptying the reservoir.

I had a friend fabricate a mild steel base that fit the bolt holes in my safe, and attach heavy duty casters from McMaster-Carr to the bottom. With the safe bolted to the baseplate I can now move it around the basement when needed. It sits a few inches of the floor to avoid any possible water.

Not sure if you can find casters strong enough for your application (unless you use more of them?). The ones I found are rated for 800 pounds each, so four of them allow me to hold 3,200 pounds (assuming even weight distribution). Since the safe only weighs 850 pounds, I am GTG.

Good Luck!

BTW, WTF is a POG? [edit: nevermind, I clicked the link]
 
do as previous post and get the safe up in the basement.

Spend some money when you can and fix the basement problem. There are a number of reasons you want to fix this anyway.

Trust me, water and home ownership does not mix well. (electrical shortages, mold, mildew, water damage to other household items etc...)
You need to address this way before you play with the outbuilding... and you will eventually have to address this for some reason anyway.
 
Another vote for the basement. At the minimum, install a sump pump. Then buy a dehumidifier with a water hose fitting on the drain side and run a short section of hose into the sump pit. That will help with summer humidity and storm-related dampness. If you find you have a major leakage problem, then you'll need to trench around the perimeter through the floor and install stone and drain pipe feeding into the sump pit.
Definitely raise the safe off the floor, anyway, but don't use concrete blocks - they absorb water through capillary action. (Set one in an inch of water and pretty soon the whole block is wet.) Either pour a 4" concrete pad or find a heavy-duty plastic pallet.
But first tell the GF the safe is going in the dining room. Then suggest the kitchen closet. When she still moans and groans just say "OK, I guess I'll have to build a man cave down cellar."
 
I agree with those that recommend putting the money into fixing the moisture problem in your basement. When I moved into my house it was a similar situation, where anything that had any fabric, or paper content would be destroyed from mold/mildew if stored in my basement. It was really silly because at one point I was spending $100 a month on a storage facility just to keep my extra furniture and crap that would have been destroyed in my own basement![rolleyes] I was pretty young, and had no experience with dehumidifiers, but my current wife talked me into setting one up, and it made a world of difference! Once I realized it was a viable place to use for storage I modified the bulkhead entrance with a trench filled with traprock, and steel grating on top as this was a place that water would occasionally flow onto the floor. I was also able to plumb a drain pipe from the dehumidifier directly into that, and it has worked flawlessly for many years. I could never get a large enough safe down through the bulkhead, so I plan to build one out of concrete block, rebar, and steel plates. This is really the best method because it is very easy to fireproof it when building from scratch, and if designed properly, can be more secure than most residential "safes" that you can buy. If you did want to do one in your attic, though, I have seen safes available where they are shipped in separate steel panels on a pallet, and you move them in piece, by piece, then assemble it in place. Definitely the best solution if you want a large attic safe, and if you ever move, it is easy to take with you, without the need to hire a crew of riggers with a crane![wink]
 
Make sure you put a security system. It shouldn't be expensive for a small place.

I was going to do the same, but temperature controll stopped me.

Put the safe in a corner.
 
The other posters raise a really good point. No matter where you store the guns, you should spend the money to take care of the problem in the basement. Guns aside, the last thing you want is to be damaging your house by having water/moisture down there.

If you use concrete blocks to raise the safe, make sure you have a spacer so the safe isn't resting directly on the block. When I was looking for ideas for getting the safe off the basement floor about a year ago, hockey pucks were recommended (which worked/is working really well).
 
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