JimboHunter1

I bought a gun safe two years ago and it has served me well. I keep it right here in my home office, which is on one of the main levels of my house.

In a couple of weeks, we are going to move into a new house (well, new to us anyway) but the bad thing is there really isn't a good place for my gun safe on the main level. As much as I hate to do it, I think I am going to have to put the safe in the basement, which is unfinished. The safe has a dehumidifier rod inside. Can anybody tell me if keeping the safe in an unfinished basementwill damage the safe and/or the guns? Like any basement, I'm sure the air down there will be somewhat humid...

The only other solution I can think of would be for me to put the safe on the upper level in the guest bedroom. My concern there would be the excessive weight of the safe being on the upstairs level. The house is well built, but would you be concerned about this?

Does anybody have any thoughts or advice? Thanks in advance for your input.

VT Ridges

I work in a job that has me moving a lot and I've had a lot basements that get flooded. I would suggest that you block the safe up off of the floor and get a dehumidifier down there. They're pretty cheap and work well. I would also suggest that you pipe it to a drain if you can. The bucket that comes with these will fill up pretty quickly and if you don't empty it oftenyou might as well not have one.

Good luck.

trailer

I have my safe in the basement and haven’t had any problems with humidity. If you are concern of high humidity you could get a dehumidifier as VT suggested. I would just leave air space between the safe and the floor as VT also suggested. Good luck...

bigcountry

Uh oh, here we go. Everyone coming on and saying they havn't had any trouble. You guys want to to wait until there is trouble?

Easy fix, as I have mine in a basement also. Get yourself a humitity guage or two, (they can be inaccurate). In the winter, probably no issues, but the spring and summer might be bad. If the levels get above 45%, see the if the rod is enough. If that don't work, get some some of the silca gel, if the levels still go much over 50%, you better by a dehumidifier and put in there.

I have seen too many people say, "i never had a problem", and then all the sudden one day they find surface rust cause they kinda got out of shootin or something for a few years. If you know its humid, waiting for rust is silly.

JimboHunter1

Thanks so far for your responses. I do plan to have a dehumidifier in the basement, and it will be drained into the sump pump. Getting it off the ground is a good idea- thanks.

bigcountry, do you know how much a humidity guage costs? Also, would I put it inside the gun safe?

Does anybody have their safe in a room on the upper level? I have a Cannon 22 gun safe, which weighsabout 500 pounds. I would prefer to have it upstairs, but don't know if it would be a bad idea due to the weight.

rybohunter

My safe has been in the basement 4 1/2 to 5 years. I run a dehumidifier all the time, it has made a huge difference in the dampness and I have not had any issues with my gun rusting.

bigcountry

I have two different kinds. One is a stand alone digital temp/humity one for like 20 dollars. The other is a LaCross or Oregon Scientific with remote indicators. You know the ones you put a sensor outside and see the temp remotely inside. I just bought an extra sensor as it can handle 4 or something like that. I put it directly in the safe. My humity before was like70% in spring time peak.Now, i never let it get over 45%.

Same thing in my reloading room. I had to buy a dehumidifyer. Made a world of difference.

bigmatty65

Along with the dehumidifier i would buy one of the really big packs of silica gel that Cabelas sells . it should stop any rusting in a gun cabinet.

trailer

I was going to mention about the humidity gauge in the safe but was waiting for big country to mention it. I have one ever since he mentioned it a little while ago. Works great... Thanks to the big guy...

bigcountry

I used to worry myself to death about it. I know people that used to shoot alot and store thier guns in regular gun cases. But like alot of us, we get into this or that and get out real quick. So they left some skeet guns or pistols stored for 4 years and bascially forget them. And then got em out and had rust on em.

I guess its the way of anything.

Didn't mean to blast ya earlier trailer. I just hear alot of people on here, reply, "I never had any problems".