Who is UL? What do they do?
UL is the “go to” independent testing lab and facility for the most trusted brands of safes, aka Underwriters Laboratories. Household brands such as SentrySafe, FireKing, Hamilton, Meilink and more utilize UL testing procedures to ensure the general public gets the best safes and fire file cabinets available. In fact, the first testing for burglary resistance took place all the way back in 1923, and then in 1925 the first bank vault was tested by UL. All of the UL tested and listed safes are rated for their resistance to attack against specific tools and elements for a set period of time. There are ratings for residential security for media safes, gun safes or vaults as well as jewelry safes for precious metals and more. Some safes also have fire resistive ratings for exposure to fire disasters.
Fire Rated Safes
Many commercial safes available today carry a fire resistance protection rating. It’s important to note that there are three (3) fire ratings.
Class 350 – this rating is for the protection of paper documents (wills, taxes, deeds, etc). Paper burns at 451 degrees F and chars in the 400 degree range. This UL rating protects vital documents from fire disaster.
Class 150 – safes with this rating can protect paper documents AND magnetic media such as DLT and LTO tapes. Film negatives can also be protected in a safe or file cabinet with this rating.
Class 125 – In additional to paper and magnetic media, UL 125 safes can protect floppy disks.
Digital Data – at this time there is no UL rating for digital data on hard drives (internal or external hard drives). At this time there are two brands of fire resistant hard drives including ioSafe and SentrySafe.
Depending on the brand name manufacturer, fire resistive ratings range from 30 minutes up to 3 hours of fire protection. There are many pros and cons to these ratings and it is recommended that you speak with a safe expert to determine which rating is best for your needs.
Many of the commercial grade safes and fireproof file cabinets also carry the UL impact listing. This test simulates a drop from three stories of a building – falling debris is a common occurrence in structures that have been weakened by fire.
Tool Attack Rated Safes
Tool Attack means what is says. When conducting tests for security, burglary resistance and the like, UL uses crowbars, screwdrivers, power saws, cutting torches, cutting wheels and even jackhammers. This is done to simulate real world scenarios; there is some reality to those Hollywood movies you have seen! The tools used in the tests can be found at any hardware store across the United States and demonstrate the valuable security that independent testing by UL offers. The old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ applies to every safe.
In addition to the testing of safes, UL also does bullet resistive testing on glass, deal drawers and banking equipment. We offer many products for drive thru bank tellers, windows as well as restaurant deal drawers that UL has given the seal of approval to.
Just about every household in America has a product with a UL listed label on it. From electronics, TV’s and computers to the security safes, commercial safes and bank vaults, UL testing plays a vital role.