Wood Lateral File Cabinet

Essentials Of A Fire Proof File Cabinet

When you have documents that are so precious that damage to them can cost a fortune to you or considerable losses, you need to store them in a fire proof file cabinet. A fire proof cabinet is made of double walled steel with Insulite insulation in-between. It is this insulation that provides you the best insulation to your precious documents in the face of a fire hazard.

A fire proof file cabinet needs to be UL certified. UL stands for Underwriters Laboratory. It is a highly reputed institution in the US that provides among other tests, a test towards successful compliance to the standard for fire safety of the equipment you have bought. The laboratory conducts independent tests for the products manufactured and certifies their safety in respect of a specified standard if they find it meets the requisite safety standards. It then marks the product as UL certified.

So, before you buy a fire proof file cabinet, you need to check for the UL or equivalent fire safety certification for the specific product model. A fire may occur due to sabotage or accidentally or it can be attributed to solely natural reasons. You need to protect your precious documents during such an eventuality. Moreover, the damage to your documents due to a fire hazard occurs mostly due to smoke, humidity, and heat generated due to it.

A fire proof file cabinet must therefore provide adequate safety to your precious documents due to any of the above reasons. Due to the eventuality based construction, a fire proof cabinet is essentially a custom made piece of equipment.

You need to specify the exact type of documents that you want to store therein. The manufacturer of the equipment will then construct it tailor-made to meet the exact conditions of the eventuality due to fire that you have in mind. However, it is important to note that computer media need a data safe vault rather than a fire proof file cabinet for their storage.

Most fire proof file cabinets are made to ensure safety to your documents in a one hour sustained fire environment with an external temperature up to 1700 A degree Fahrenheit and an internal temperature that depends on the UL rating for the equipment.

Generally, a fire proof cabinet is manufactured either to the rating UL class 350 or class 125. This rating means your documents are secure for one hour inside the cabinet with the storage temperature that can reach up to a limit of 350 or 125 degrees Fahrenheit respectively and 80% humidity during the eventuality. Additionally, a fire proof cabinet also comes with UL listed impact resistance and high security key lock.

A fire proof file cabinet is an exorbitantly costly piece of equipment. Starting prices may range from $ 400 and go up to $ 1000, depending on the size, features, type and extent of protection you desire.