I am going to upgrade my home safe. The safe will be on the second floor, which is the top floor. The safes I am looking at weigh 350 to 500 pounds. I could probably get by with a 300 to 350 pound safe. I mentioned this to a contractor who is doing non-structural work on my house, and he said the floor would buckle. He advised 150 pounds, max. The current safe is less than 100 pounds.
This seems odd to me, because people who weigh 300 pounds, of whom there are many, are not cautioned to avoid their second floors or to spread their feet wide apart.
This contractor has done excellent work for me on painting, carpentry, tiling, and repair of non-load bearing structure. I am not sure how seriously to take his warning.
Any other advice on installing the safe? The seller will get it upstairs and into position.
The reason I want a heavy safe: If I have home health care (hope never), I want a safe that is definitely health-aide and house-keeper proof.
What I decided, based on Answers and Comments: I cannot deal with a significant probablility that my floor will buckle or collapse. So I decided to get a lighter safe (vicinity of 100 lbs) and screw it from the inside to the walland/or floor. And, of course, use a passcode that would be impossible to infer, plus get a safe with a "three guesses and you are locked out feature". I will also sell things that I no longer use (always a good move), move a few cherished things to my safe-deposit box, and update the appraisals on a few things so I am more fully covered by insurance. That is, a mixture of strategies instead of an exclusively brute force strategy. THanks to all.
