The Howie Carr Radio Network

Meet the Experts: Derek Scott of Eastern Security Safe Company

Where do you keep your most prized possessions? In previous episodes, Howie Carr has learned from experts in weaponry and valuables. What do these have in common? They need to be stored safely and securely. Join Howie Carr and Derek Scott of Eastern Security Safe Co. as they discuss the many aspects of a reliable and durable safe and drive home the value of investing in high-quality protection.

Duration:: 24m
Broadcast on:: 13 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. In previous episodes, we've discussed valuables like gold and silver and self-defense weapons. What do these items have in common? They need to be stored safely and securely. Join Derek Scott, General Manager of Eastern Security Safe, as he discusses the many aspects of a reliable and durable safe, and even provides some examples, both good and bad, of why a good safe is a good investment. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to this latest episode of Meet the Experts and with us today is Derek Scott. He is the General Manager of Eastern Security Safe. He's going to answer your questions about safes and what you need to protect your valuables and your assets going forward in this time of turmoil and insecurity. Derek, thanks for being with us here on Meet the Experts. You've been working at Eastern Security Safe for a long time now. You started out as, what, a firefighter? Yeah, so actually how I got the job. I've been an on-call firefighter for about 15 years. Am I lieutenant at the time? Well, this father owns Eastern Security Safe. So when I was a young-in, they came up and was like, my father needs some help at the shop. Do you feel like lending a hand? Started off one day and 13, 14 years later, here I am. You're the General Manager. Yes. Where is Eastern Security Safe? So Eastern Security Safe, we have two locations. Our primary location is in Menden Mass at 23 Providence Street, and the other one is at 13 Bosworth Street in West Springfield, right across from Gate 7 at the Biggie. Now, where do you go? All the listeners, can they go to Eastern Security Safe for their safe needs? Yes, I mean, we service all types of needs between firearms, coins, jewelry, baseball cards, documents, precious pictures that you can't scan over. You know, really anything that somebody deems valuable, we try and have a safe for. But geographically, I mean-- Oh, geographically, yeah. We service all six New England states, plus Eastern part of New York. We'll do some northern, northeastern parts of New York, like up by Lake George and all that, but typically we try and keep it within about two hours of the state of order from New York. And you go up into northern Maine as well? Northern Maine, I think the furthest I've personally gone was Jackman, which is about a six hour ride from here. But we'll also go down south of Manhattan and Long Island. The first question I get to ask you is we've advertised safe companies before, and one company we had was selling safes that were turning over information to the feds about the safes. And I don't have to tell you how crazy that drove it. All of our people. So tell me if your companies give information to the feds, or is there a company that doesn't give information to the feds? We do not give any codes to the feds. We don't give up anybody's personal codes, even to the people who try and get their own. We don't deal with the company that did give them away. I can tell you if someone loses a combination, the first call is us. OK, how do I get it back? Well, there's a lot involved. It's not just saying, hey, I'm Joe Schmo with the FBI. I need to get into the safe. Give me the code. There's a long process that we go through in the vet, and they're sure that's the person that we're trying to get the codes. Now, Fort Knox is really good with this. Fort Knox, the company. The company. Yeah, yeah, not the goal. Not the men. No, no, no, no. So out in Utah, Fort Knox is one of the more reliable, safe companies. Fort Knox allows the customer to purchase a safe. They don't track customers' names with their safes. Now, you are able to get it via the serial number, but you have the person themselves would have to call. So nobody else, aside of that person who bought it, can get that information. But there's nothing fail-safe, ultimately, because they can go in and they can get a search order or warrant or something like that. Unfortunately, if our names are listed in the document, really, not much we can do. But I will tell you, we will fight tooth and nail to prevent them from getting the codes they need. Unfortunately, with the FBI and the government, they can go right around us if they really want it. When was the last time you got a call from the G-men? It's been a couple of years. About two or three years ago, we had a person who was interested. They were interested in them in a bad case that was going on and didn't need to get out their guns. And it was like, nope, nope, nope. And then finally, they listed us in the subpoena. So unfortunately, it wasn't much we could do. What is the reason that most people get a safe from Eastern security safe? More popular reasons are firearms. It's a big thing. Obviously, in the state of Massachusetts, there's a law that you have to lock up your firearms if it's not on you. Obviously, the focal point is keeping them away from kids or people who could do harm with them. Out to the next would be coins. Coins, gold, silver, rings, you know, passed out from from members. That'd be the number two reason. But primarily, it's firearms. And in Massachusetts, you have to have a safe. Yes, you got to lock it up. It's got to be locked, trigger lock, or underneath the locking key. How big does a safe have to be, do you think? Well, that's a good question because the first question I always get from a customer is, well, I don't know how big I need to get. And to the novice, people will look at a safe from a local chain store and say, well, it'll hold 30 firearms. A safe will never hold the amount that it'll say on the tag. It just won't, between all the different optics or the different accessories they have on the firearms. It just will not fit. - Ammo. - Yeah, ammo. You really should keep it separate from the firearms in a different location, but I'm gonna slide on to the interpretation wall. What's good of a firearm if it doesn't have ammo in it? - Do you need to keep the ammo under lock and key? - I haven't found that you need to. It's preferred. - Under law. - Correct, yeah, it's preferred. Under law. - What is the most complicated installation you've been involved in over the years? - I mean, there's a lot of them. I can tell you we put a big 72 inch tall by 61 inch wide, safe down a bulkhead door. We got there and obviously couldn't do it. We had to get a crane, lower it down. We had to cut out the stairs, we had to lower it down. This is all with customer permission, by the way. We don't ever do anything without customer permission or their approval to get things done, but a lot of times the customer wants to safe where they want it. So yeah, we were cutting out the stairs, lowered it down with the crane all the way through the house, which was a nice two, three million dollar house, over tile, over hardwood floors. And that's something we strive in just to make sure no matter how big or small the house is, we protect everything to the last spot. - Is one safe sufficient for most of your customers or do people need multiple safes as the years go by? - Well, it depends how much they're buying firearms. You know, I would say a lot of people do end up with just one, but I will say there's plenty of times where, you know, a kid mid 30s will come in and say, well, I only have four firearms. The likelihood of you buying more in your lifetime is pretty good. So I was trying to tell people, buy bigger than what you have, just in case you fill it up. 'Cause it's a lot more expensive to buy two or three safes than it is just one bigger one than what you need now. - And by the way, in the middle of this, we should mention how people can get in touch with Eastern Security Safe. - Yeah, so you can give us a call at 508-473-1048, or you can visit our website at easternsecuritysafe.com. If they mention your name or they mention that they've paired us on the show, they get 5% off Fort Knox and everything else that we have in our inventory. - Is Fort Knox your top seller, by the way? - It's our top seller, and in my opinion, it's the best well-made residential safe that we carry. The quality, the craftsmanship, I mean, it's just top notch. And it's a little harder for anybody to get the info. - Yes, it's a lot tougher for people to get info. I mean, they can tell you stories of how they had people on murder cases that they saw stuff going into a vault room, and they wouldn't give up the code. They wouldn't do it, 'cause they didn't have that customer's permission to get in there, and sometimes it's a good and bad thing, but they'll still buy their customers as far as keeping their codes away from people who don't need them. - Give us the phone number in the website again, please. - Yeah, so it's 508-473-1048, is the phone number. The website is easternsecuritysafe.com. - Now, as you know, in a somewhat high ticket item, like a safe, people tend to go north to New Hampshire to avoid the sales tax. Is that a problem in Massachusetts? - One of the few things about Massachusetts actually is really, well thought out is, in Mass, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and now Maine, gun safes are sales tax exempt, so you don't need to go to New Hampshire just to get the tax free. You can get it right in Massachusetts, and you can deliver and install with no tax to your door. - But you just have to sell it. If you buy in Connecticut, you're still exempt or Maine. - Correct, yeah, no matter where we make the sale in those states, your sales tax exempt, Rhode Island, unfortunately, we still have to charge sales tax. - How does someone decide what the best size for them is and what the most secure type of safe is? From say, I don't know, a flood, fire, something like that. - When a customer comes into the store, I always ask them, you know, do you have an idea of how many you have or what you're looking to put in there? And we'll start from-- - Meaning guns. - Correct, guns, yeah. - Because guns is the first thing you ask them. - Correct, yeah, that's mostly what people are coming in there for, so I'll ask them that. - So what percentage is guns? - 80. - 80% of guns, yep, that's what we've been known for. But we like to say, they just try and cater to the other audiences, meaning gold, silver, I mean, just because it's a gun safe, doesn't mean you can't transform it into an all-shelf safe form. Again, whatever you deem valuable. - Stock certificates. - Anything, start a move. - Yeah, exactly, yeah. Stuff that, even stuff that should be paying the butt to lose in a fire, you know, whether it be a passport or a birth certificate or something like that. And something I will preach to is nothing is fireproof, nothing is waterproof, nothing is burglary proof. And that's just anything with the right amount of time, tools, conditions, it can burn, someone can get into it. - The water? - I always, I don't like to use the term waterproof just because, you know, as anyone who owns a home, the smallest little crack in the foundation, you're gonna see water come through. - Right. - Now those ways you can, you know, help yourself, whether it be laying it up on a pedestal, you know, off the ground, which we do recommend if you're gonna put in an environment where you think you could get water. But yeah, so I always recommend at least keeping them four inches off the ground to prevent case of pipe bursts of sorts. - Let's talk about the thickness of steel. What do you need? I mean, how much do you recommend and what's the range options? - The range of options is that we carry normally is quarter inch to 14 gauge steel. Now, when you see a number of a gauge in steel, the lower the number, the thicker the steel. So when you see 14 gauge, it's kind of a thinner steel, or when you see a seven gauge, it's a lot thicker. I would say the average that I like to promote is 10 gauge. A 10 gauge safe is adequate enough for the average homeowner. The smash and grab thief's aren't gonna come in and break into it, I can tell you that. And it's gonna kind of keep, you know, your options open as far as where you wanna put it in the house. 'Cause a lot of things that people don't understand is when you get these ridiculously heavy safes, you're not gonna put it in the middle of a first floor living room. - Right. - You know, it's just not practical. You wanna kind of have a balance of, okay, well, can I get a eight, nine hundred pound safe, accounting for it, I'm gonna put 200 pounds more stuff into it, you know, go that route, or if they wanna put in their basement, they can get, you know, 2,000 pounds. - So what would the average weight be of a safe from Eastern security safe? - Anywhere from 750 to 950. - What are the odds that a burglar could take one of those out of the house? - Someone who is looking for a quick fix in and out of the house is very minimal. - When was the last time you had one of your safes? - We've had a few attempted break-ins, none successful. We have had one that a guy literally picked up and removed from a house down in Providence. Now that was a 400 pound safe, and we did recommend him bolting it down. We wanna make that clear. When it's something that, quote unquote, light, two guys can pick up and move, we always recommend bolting down. So this guy came home from a vacation and a safe was missing off his shelf. Alex said, "I've seen a couple attempted break-ins, which failed. We have a safe in our shop that people have had for three days who try to get into it with torches, cutting, prying, couldn't do it." - Just for conversational purposes, what's the best way to get into a safe if you're trying to break into it? - It would probably be through the sides of the top. So the door is always gonna be the most secure part of the safe. There's no way fans are butts about it, you know? Anywhere from an $800 safe to an $8,000 safe, the door is always gonna be the most secure. The sides are just steel, just a steel wall. There's no relockers, there's nothing for security outside of just the walls. And that's where people kind of get into the mindset of, okay, well, do I get a thicker wall? You know, to prevent someone from cutting it open, I mean-- - Would you drill into it or would you cut it? - Yeah, you get a metal blade. - A metal blade. - Yeah, on a rotary saw or just a saws all ages, you just cut it. I've seen those throughout the country where people have cut triangles into sides of the safe so it's in the back of a safe-- - Is the technology getting better? - Not really. It's really just, you can just layer up steel, just keep layering, layering, layering, and that's kind of how you prevent someone from cutting into it. Now, four knocks, for example, offers a AR-500 liner, which is four times stronger than carbon steel, and they also offer a stainless steel liner, which prevents from torch and tack via that way. - That's gonna be very expensive. - Yeah, I mean, now you're talking that's the Cadillac. You know, four knocks will build you a safe that you could get $25, $26,000, but it'll have all three of those layers of steel. - So how much can someone get a safe for to protect three, four firearms and maybe some $5,000 worth of coins? - You know, a good average safe for a customer, you can get out of there with three grand. Now, we do offer some that are obviously less, you know, we do have entry-level models that are-- - As low as? - 800 bucks, and then after that, it's the sky's the limit. But I would say the average customer will come in and spend about three grand on a safe, and it all depends on what they're putting in there, how they, you know, how valuable they deem it. - And what's the most expensive safe you've ever sold? - Personally, it was 38,000, and it was from-- - Four knocks? - Yeah, four knocks. Yeah, it was a big six foot by 61 inch tall safe that actually we delivered down to Virginia. - The Virginia? - Yes, special customer, special time, so we'd trucked all the way down there and put it in his house. - So you must have a pretty elite type of a safe company here. - Yeah, we vet all of our people. We have, it's our reputation that's going into these people's houses, and I personally think we have one of the best teams out there as far as installation. Personable, how they treat people's houses, how they treat the product, you know, as little as put in plywood over the lawn, or putting just protectors over thresholds. - We're talking to Derek Scott. He's the general manager of Eastern Security Safe, and they have stores in Minden and in West Springfield, but they'll go everywhere in New England and Eastern Northern New York. And as far as South as Virginia, let me ask you something, what do people do as they inevitably do, and as I have inevitably done, lose the combinations to the safes or the codes? - So the simple thing is you show up with your license, you prove who you are, and we can do it that way. Us getting the code from manufacturers is a little more of an issue, it's a lot more red tape, but yeah, say if you, how we left your combination in the safe, I'd tell you, you know what, you're close enough, come on down to our shop, show us your license, we'll be happy to give you the code. - So I just have to go down there and get the code, just drive to Minden or West Springfield and get the code. - Yeah, yeah, we won't do it over the phone. - How often do people lose the code? - Daily. - Daily? - Yeah, we have about 30,000 customers, and at least once or twice a day, is somebody who forgot their code, or forgot the keypad code that they had, and so forth. - What about guns rusting in the safe? Is that a problem? - That's a good question. Actually, the second most common question we get, every safe that we sell comes with what they call a dehumidifying rod. Now, what that simply does, it just boosts up the heat inside the safe, it's a plug-in, and it displaces any moisture that could potentially build up over time. - A dehumidifying? - Yeah, it's a dehumidifying rod. Now, it's nothing you have to empty out, or, but it's just a heat rod, so it'll just heat up and creates two, two more degrees of ambient heat inside the safe. - And how long does that last? - We've seen a time span of about 15 years, but they have a lifetime warranty on 'em, so as soon as it burns out, you give us a call, we may be bringing in the next day. - What about a safer car? - So that's another common question we get. There's really no good answer for that, because every car has a different make model size, whether it be for a glove compartment, or for the center console. We do carry some that can wrap around the seat, and then you shove underneath the seat, and secure it that way, and that is legal. But as far as something that can be locked in the console, we haven't seen a reputable company that we trust to sell, so we haven't had that yet, but the one I would recommend is something, again, that you can wrap around a cable, or around a seat, and put it underneath the front seat. Now, how much would that cost? - That starts off at $99. - Oh, so that's very cheap. - Yeah, it's not designed to keep the greatest thief of the world out, it's designed to keep you legal. In case you have one on your person, and then, oh, I gotta go into the post office, or I gotta go into the bank, well, you're not gonna-- - Or cross a state line. - Exactly. The car safe is just a way to keep you out of trouble with the police. - Yeah, you don't need to go too crazy, in my opinion. - But what about these panic or vault rooms? - Well, a panic room or a vault room could be used as two different things. Panic room is kinda in the name. You're in an emergency, people come into the house, you wanna get into a secure place, boom, you have a door right in the middle of your house, you open it up, you get in, and you lock yourself in. A vault room is a, well, a gun room. For the people who maybe don't wanna buy five safes, they'll build the room inside their basement. You know, whether it be a 10 by 10, or a 12 by 12 concrete filled room, that we put a safe door on, then they can do as a please, as far as interior options and-- - So you don't build a concrete or anything like that? - No, no, no, we-- - Just put the door-- - Yeah, we just supply the door, and we can put it really anywhere in the house as long as it'll fit, and as long as it's safe, no pun intended. - How much would that cost? - Those would start at around 3,500. Really, if you're gonna secure it like that, you wanna go with a Fort Knox or a Champion door, which those start off around $7,000. - What are the trends in safes? There are people going for more like vault rooms, or are they going more for larger safes, smaller safes, car safes, what's selling more now, or less than it used to be? - Well, I would say during the peak of COVID, we were getting a lot of high-end customers, a lot of big safes, a lot of high dollar, 'cause they didn't really much money to spend elsewhere on. Now we're seeing the trend of a lot of entry level customers, which we're happy with. You know, we like the people who start, kids who are 21, 22 years old, just looking for a safe to buy. And we're seeing that trend right now, and especially in the economy, the way it is with inflation. I mean, people are struggling elsewhere. To some, a safe is a luxury item to people. I personally believe that if you don't want anything to be stolen or ruined in a fire, you should have a safe in the house, regardless of the funds. But we are seeing that, you know, with the inflation, and how the Biden economics are doing, they are taking a toll on our hiring clientele. - Your safes can survive a fire? - I've seen multiple, personally, outlast a house fire. A lot of things go into it, placement in the house. The basement's always gonna be the coolest part of a house fire. - If you put it in the basement, it's most likely to survive. - Correct, yes. - And again, they're fewer, as you know, for us being a firefighter, they're fewer house fires now than it used to be. - Yes, which is a good thing. - Which is a very good thing, but it's still a possibility. - It's a possibility, I mean, it's happened to myself. That was actually my first house fire on the department was to my own house. That's a whole nother story, but, you know, I've seen people's houses that have gone up with a safe, and it's survived, and we've opened it up, and boom, like nothing happened. It's been a wild ride when seeing those, 'cause you never know what the inside's gonna look like. It's always like, you wanna peek behind the door, but you don't. - If you're concerned about a fire, what's the best safe? Just another more expensive, safe, thicker walls. - Yeah, exactly. So you can get, you know, my recommendation for a fire rating is at least 90 minutes. - What does that mean? - So really what the fire ratings mean, you'll see a temperature, say it says 1650 degrees for 90 minutes. Now, all that means is during that temperature at that time, the internal temperature does not exceed 275 degrees to 350 degrees. So you're safe against paper charring and stuff melting. Obviously, the more you wanna spend, the higher you can go, the higher rating, the longer time. The best place to outlast house fire is a basement. So if you get a two hour fire rated safe, and you put in an unfinished part of the basement, your chances of outlasting house fire are very good. - How about an electric vehicle? That would make it harder for a safe to survive a fire. - Yeah, especially with what it takes to put those out the amount of water and how hot those burn. If you have a safe in a garage, which a lot of people do, you know, electric vehicle catches fire. I mean, there's not much we can do and we can keep pouring water on those things, but they're gonna keep going up and up and up. Chances of that outlasting house fire, probably not very good, but it's just, again, solid circumstance in what, you know, where you live, you know, you live in Boston versus the middle of the woods, you know, how long it's taking fire department to get there, you know, are they quick, are they accurate? You know, it's a full time versus call. So a lot of factors go into it if it won't last that. - Now, do you have alarms on your safe or is just, you can put an alarm and how does the alarm work? - You can tie it into alarm system in your home. It's pricey, but yeah, you can do it. That can monitor motion, you know, someone trying to rattle it, break into it. It'll send an alarm code to the alarm company, alerting them that someone's trying to get into it and-- - Call the police. - Hopefully. - What are some of the extra bells and whistles that people can put on a safe? - The popular thing is the color. And believe it or not, you know, people-- - Really? - Oh yeah. But if a husband's trying to convince a wife to buy a safe, let her pick the color, then she can match with the decor in the room and be done with. Other than that, lights inside the safe, that's the popular feature that now we're kind of just including in all of our safes. And then really it's just more steel. The people with the luxury items, it's not like the fancy, you know, like I said, the finishes, but you add layers of steel that's gonna significantly help the cause and someone not trying to get into it. - And so you've only seen one case, though, of anyone lifting a safe. - Lifting, yes, and you know, it depends on who it is. You know, two people who are motivated can lift 400 pounds. But we recommend bothing the safe down. You bolt the safe down, you eliminate the possibility of someone yaking it out of the house or tipping over. - How about wall safes? - Wall safes are-- - They're in movies. - Yeah. (laughs) Well, the thing with wall safes is you can't really have much of a fire rating with them 'cause they're thin. You know, they only fit between the studs of the wall and only two and a half inches back to the depth of the wall. So there's really not much of a fire rating with them. And their security is the fact that you can hide it. You flush with the wall, you put a mirror over it, you put a painting over it, it's never there. And that's the security of it. But as far as fire, it's tough, tough. - So there aren't many walls. - There's only a few companies that will do wall safes for that reason. - Do you sell any? - Yep, yep, made by V-Line. V-Line will sell 'em and American security will sell 'em. That would do it. - Do you sell many? - Probably a half a dozen a year. Yeah, not too much. - We're talking to Derek Scott. This has been a very interesting conversation from Eastern Security Safe. And he's the general manager that's in Menden and West Springfield, but you go everywhere. - We go everywhere, deliver everywhere, and service everywhere. - And if you have any questions about what you should get, where should people go? - Well, again, you can give us a call, talk to any one of our salesmen or saleswoman at 508-473-1048. Go to our website, which is easternsecuritysafe.com, or you can visit any of our two showrooms, which, again, in Menden's at 23 Providence Street, and in West Springfield's at 13 Bosworth. - You open how many days a week? - So we're open six days a week. During the week, it's nine to five, Saturday, it's nine to three. - This is a great company and been in business for how long? How many years you've been in business? - Oh, geez, 33. - If I missed anything, Derek, did you want to talk about? - No, I think you covered a lot there. I appreciate having me on, and hopefully it can spread the awareness of people that it doesn't matter what you're deemed valuable. You don't want to lose it. You don't want something to come and take it from me. And it's just, you know, we have something for you, and it's not just guns. It's for anything that you want. And what's not valued to me could be the world to you, and it's just one of those things where you want to protect it. - You have safes that feds will not be able to get any information about how to get into the safe. You can provide those safes for people. Should they just ask for Fort Knox, or? - I would recommend starting with them and seeing how well they're built and just go from there. I just want someone to be secure and be happy with their purchase. - Derek Scott from Eastern Security Safe, thank you for being with us here today on Meet the Experts. - Thanks, Howard. (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us on Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon with more interesting guests. You're sure to learn a great deal from. (upbeat music) (dramatic music) [BLANK_AUDIO]