Why Australia has no independent safe-testing body

A bloke rang me last month wanting to know if the safe he’d bought off a pallet sale was “AS 3809 rated.” He had a sticker on the door that said so. No certificate, no test number, nothing. Just a sticker. That conversation happens more than you’d think, and it’s the reason I wanted to […]

What TL and cash ratings actually mean on a safe

Had a call last month from a collector out near Toorak Road who’d been quoted on three safes for a small painting collection and some jewellery. One dealer called it a TL-30. Another called the same box a “$50,000 cash rated safe.” He wanted to know which number mattered. Fair question. Twenty-two years doing this […]

What a genuine panic room build actually costs to install

Last month I quoted a job in Toorak where the client had already been given a figure by another outfit: $18,000, turnkey, done in a fortnight. I walked the site, looked at the wall construction and the existing door frame, and told them the real number was closer to four times that. They weren’t happy […]

Early-warning smoke detection vs a standard smoke alarm explained

Three weeks back I was in a private gallery off Chapel Street in Prahran, checking a client’s storage room before a revaluation. Standard smoke alarm on the ceiling, ten years old, battery half flat. The owner told me it was “basically the same thing” as the aspirating system I’d quoted for the vault next door. […]