More than it looks. Makers’ own figures put a small Victorian safe at about 150 kg, a safe about a metre tall at 400–600 kg and the largest double-door office safes at up to two and a half tonnes. Here are the sourced weights, and what they mean for your floor, your stairs and the people who move it.
152 kg
3 cwt: Chubb’s 1875 figure for a safe 22 inches wide
567 kg
a 99 cm tall single-door safe in Cary’s 1899 catalogue
2.4 t
a 198 cm tall office safe in the same catalogue
25 kg
HSE’s highest lifting guideline for one man
Key takeaways
- Old safes are heavy because they are two iron or steel boxes, one inside the other, with the gap packed with fire-resisting filling and, in many 20th-century safes, concrete.
- Victorian and Edwardian makers’ figures work out at roughly 1 to 1.75 tonnes per cubic metre of outside size. Measure your safe and compare it with the examples below.
- Even a small safe puts several times the design load of a house floor onto the patch it stands on. Upstairs, ask a structural engineer.
- No one should lift a safe by hand. Use a specialist safe remover, and never cut an old safe up to move it.
In This Article
The quick answer, by size
These bands come straight from the makers’ figures quoted in full further down, so you can check every one. They’re for ordinary fire-resisting safes. Burglar-resisting and bankers’ safes of the same size were heavier, so if yours is one of those, expect more.12
| Small, about 45–65 cm tall | 150–200 kg |
| Knee to waist height, 85–100 cm | 400–600 kg |
| Chest height, about 120 cm | About 800 kg |
| Double-door (folding doors), 1–2 m tall | 0.8–2.5 tonnes |
| Bankers’ and treasury safes | 4 tonnes or more |
Why old safes are so heavy
A Victorian fire-resisting safe is a box within a box. George Hayter Chubb described “two walls of wrought iron” with the space between “filled with a fire-resisting material”. The usual filling was sawdust mixed with alum, which gives off water when heated; cheaper makers used clay, ashes or soil.1 Milner’s top-quality safes at the Great Exhibition of 1851 had outsides of half-inch wrought iron.3
Most of the thickness is filling, not metal. According to the safe engineer behind safeman.org.uk, a typical body and door were about four inches thick, of which only about half an inch was protective metal; the rest was loose fire-resisting compound.4 The door plate, carrying the lock and bolts, was usually 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick on its own.
From the 1930s concrete arrived. John Tann used its patented “Adamantium” in higher-quality safes, and Chatwood’s best-selling Duplex had a concrete fill between a 3/8-inch inner plate and a 3/16-inch outer body, with a cast steel door partly filled with concrete: “a very difficult safe to handle”, as safeman puts it.5
Weight was also how buyers judged quality. Chubb urged them to “insist upon the weight being stamped on the safe” and to compare it with his table, because thin plate and skimpy filling show up on the scales.1 That’s still useful advice. Before you guess, check the back and base of your safe for a stamped figure.
“A tolerably correct guide in the purchase of a safe is its weight.”
George Hayter Chubb, Protection from Fire and Thieves, 1875
Typical weights: sourced examples
We haven’t found a published weight list for Milner, Tann or Chatwood safes online, and the “antique safe weight calculators” we’ve seen don’t say where their numbers come from. So the most reliable figures are the makers’ own. Two catalogues give sizes and weights side by side: Chubb’s guide of 1875 for British safes, and the 1899 catalogue of the Cary Safe Company of Buffalo, New York, for American ones.12 Sizes are outside measurements, height by width by depth.
Chubb’s guide to the weights of good safes, 1875
| Size (inches) | Size (cm) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 17 × 22 × 16 | 43 × 56 × 41 | 3 cwt (152 kg) |
| 28 × 44 × 24 | 71 × 112 × 61 | 11 cwt (559 kg) |
| 39 × 48 × 25, folding doors | 99 × 122 × 64 | 16 cwt (813 kg) |
| 39 × 60 × 26, folding doors | 99 × 152 × 66 | 23 cwt (1,168 kg) |
| 48 × 84 × 30, folding doors | 122 × 213 × 76 | 42 cwt (2,134 kg) |
Chubb set these as minimums for a sound safe: “No safes of the sizes mentioned should weigh less than these amounts”, and safes lined with steel “will, of course, be very much heavier”.1 One hundredweight (cwt) is 112 lb, or 50.8 kg.
Cary Safe Company, single-door and office safes, 1899
| Catalogue number and size (inches) | Size (cm) | Approximate weight |
|---|---|---|
| No. 2: 25½ × 15½ × 16 | 65 × 39 × 41 | 400 lb (181 kg) |
| No. 4: 33 × 22½ × 22 | 84 × 57 × 56 | 925 lb (420 kg) |
| No. 6: 39 × 27 × 23 | 99 × 69 × 58 | 1,250 lb (567 kg) |
| No. 10: 48 × 32 × 25 | 122 × 81 × 64 | 1,800 lb (816 kg) |
| No. 28: 78 × 55 × 31 | 198 × 140 × 79 | 5,400 lb (2,449 kg) |
The safes in Cary’s catalogue photographs stand on four castors, and the firm calls the figures “approximate”.2 For their size they run a little heavier than Chubb’s minimums.
Other recorded weights
| Milner & Son, Great Exhibition, 1851 | Safes made “from 5 cwt. to 3 tons each in weight”, about 250 kg to 3 tonnes.3 |
| Milners’ safe, offered by a dealer as “from 1890” | 71 × 56 × 56 cm, 250 kg (dealer’s figure).6 |
| Tann thief-resisting safe, described in 1875 | 5 ft 6 in high, “about four tons weight of iron” used in making it.1 |
| Chubb’s “Treasury”, 1930s | About 4 tons.7 |
| Chatwood “CB” quality, made for the Commercial Bank of Scotland | Around 5 tons, with 10 inches of steel and concrete.7 |
Did you know?
Even Victorians doubted some published weights. Chubb quoted a description of one of Milner’s strongest safes, 83¼ inches high with three sets of doors, as weighing “thirteen tons”, and printed a question mark after it.1
How to estimate the weight of your safe
Measure your safe and compare it with the tables, or let our safe weight calculator do the sums from the same figures. If you want a single figure, the ten catalogue examples above all fall between about 1,050 and 1,750 kg per cubic metre of outside size, with the smallest safes at the heavy end.12 This is our own working from those figures, not a maker’s rule:
- Measure the outside height, width and depth in metres, with the door shut.
- Multiply them to get the volume in cubic metres.
- Multiply by 1,050 for a low estimate and 1,750 for a high one.
Take a safe 70 × 55 × 55 cm: that gives 0.21 m³ and a range of about 220 to 370 kg. Reassuringly, the dealer’s 250 kg Milner of almost exactly that size sits inside it.6 A burglar-resisting safe, a bankers’ safe or anything with concrete in it can be well above the range, so treat the high figure as the one to plan for.
Floors, stairs and doorways
House floors are designed for people and furniture spread across a room, not for a tonne on a small patch. In the United States the model building code sets the design live load for one- and two-family dwellings at 30 lb per square foot in sleeping areas and 40 lb in other rooms, roughly 150 and 195 kg per square metre.8 England’s Approved Document A bases its rules for walls in small buildings on floors carrying 2.0 kN per square metre, about 200 kg.9
Now look at a safe’s footprint. Chubb’s smallest safe, 152 kg on 56 × 41 cm, puts about 670 kg on each square metre it covers; Cary’s No. 6, 567 kg on 69 × 58 cm, about 1,400 kg.12 Many old safes stand on four small castors, which concentrates the load further. Design figures include safety margins and joists spread a load, so this doesn’t mean the floor will fail. It does mean that a heavy safe on a suspended timber floor, especially upstairs or mid-span, is a job for a structural engineer to check.
- Stairs carry the safe, the equipment and the people moving it at once. A safe manufacturer’s advice is to “make sure your stairs are capable of holding the combined weight of the safe, you, and your helpers”.10
- Doorways and corners are measured with the safe on its trolley, not on its own. Safes in understairs cupboards and fitted wardrobes, which readers often describe, may have gone in before the joinery was built, so the way out can be narrower than the way in.
- Floor finishes such as tiles, floorboards and parquet need boards laid over them for the route.
How professionals move a heavy safe
Start with the numbers. The UK Health and Safety Executive’s guideline filter for lifting is 25 kg for a man and 16 kg for a woman, for a load held close to the body between knuckle and elbow height; anything above it needs a proper assessment.11 The smallest safe in Chubb’s table is six times that figure.
Specialist safe removers avoid lifting. They tilt the safe onto a heavy-duty hand truck, as in the 1951 photograph at the top of this page, strap it down, and take stairs one step at a time with a stair-climbing trolley and a team. Liberty Safe, a gun safe maker, recommends a load-rated stair-climbing dolly, strong straps, moving blankets and at least two helpers, and concludes that “your best bet is to have a professional safe mover do the job for you”.10 The heaviest safes and strongroom doors need lifting gear, as the photograph of a Chubb door arriving in Sydney shows.
Before you book, ask for a written quote that names the equipment, the number of people, floor protection and the firm’s insurance for goods and property. Empty the safe if it’s open, and if it’s locked with no key, have it opened first by a safe engineer: a locked safe is no lighter, and its contents may shift. Our guide on how to move or get rid of an old safe covers costs and what removers need from you.
Never cut it up to move it
Some safes and fire cabinets made before 2000 contain asbestos in their door seals or wall filling. Ireland’s Health and Safety Authority says a safe that may contain asbestos must not be cut open, and should be treated as hazardous waste at the end of its life.12 If a safe really cannot come out in one piece, talk to a safe engineer and an asbestos surveyor first, and read our guide to asbestos in old safes.
Weight is also part of a safe’s security. European guidance is that a free-standing safe under 1,000 kg should be anchored to the building by a specialist, and UL’s TL-rated burglary safes must weigh at least 750 lb (340 kg) or come with anchoring instructions.1314 If you’re buying, our guide to buying a second-hand safe covers delivery and anchoring.
Milner, Chubb and Tann safe weights
Owners often search for the weight of a particular make. Honestly, the size of the safe matters far more than the name on the plate, but here’s what the sources give for the makers asked about most.
- Milner: from 5 cwt to 3 tons in 1851, and a dealer’s 1890s example at 250 kg. One reader with a Milner “212” safe estimates it at over 200 kg, which fits the tables.36
- Chubb: the 1875 table above is Chubb’s own guide, and the firm’s 1930s Treasury safe weighed about 4 tons. Chubb’s lock numbers can date the safe, which helps you find the right catalogue.17
- Tann: no weight list survives that we know of; a thief-resisting John Tann safe 5 ft 6 in high used about four tons of iron in 1875, and from the 1930s better grades had concrete.15
- Chatwood-Milner: catalogue specifications quoted by dealers give about 355 kg for the 65 cm Duplex Minor, 565–584 kg for the 78 cm Duplex Major and 1,550 kg for a 1.4 m Duplex Anti-blowpipe.15 These post-war safes followed Chatwood’s concrete-filled 1930s Duplex, which explains the weight.5 More in our entry on Chatwood-Milner safes.
Moving is one step of several. For what to do with an old safe from start to finish, from identifying the maker to selling or donating it, see I have an old safe: what now?
Help us build the table
Do you know the real weight of your safe from a removal invoice or a weighbridge? Send us photos of the plate and serial number with its size and weight, and we’ll add confirmed examples to this page.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an old safe weigh?
By makers’ own figures, about 150–200 kg for a small safe, 400–600 kg for one about a metre tall, around 800 kg at 120 cm, and up to about 2.5 tonnes for the largest double-door office safes.
How much does a Milner safe weigh?
Milner advertised safes from 5 cwt to 3 tons in 1851, roughly 250 kg to 3 tonnes. By the method on this page, a Milner of about 70 × 55 × 55 cm is likely to weigh roughly 220–370 kg; measure yours and compare it with the tables.
Is there an antique safe weight calculator?
Yes: our free safe weight calculator uses the method on this page. Multiplying the outside volume by 1,050–1,750 kg per cubic metre matches the makers’ published figures, but heavier burglar-resisting and concrete-filled safes can exceed it.
Can two people move an old safe?
Not by lifting it. Even the smallest Victorian safes weigh several times the HSE lifting guideline, and stairs are where accidents happen. Use a specialist safe remover.
Will my floor hold an old safe?
On a solid ground floor, it’s less of a worry. On a suspended timber floor, especially upstairs, a heavy safe concentrates several times the design load on a small area, so ask a structural engineer.
Sources:
- George Hayter Chubb, Protection from Fire and Thieves (London, 1875), ch. III (safes of Milner and Tann), ch. IV (fire-resisting materials) and ch. V (“Weights of good safes”), via Project Gutenberg. ↩︎
- Cary Safe Company, Buffalo, NY, trade catalogue (1899), “Diagrams and sizes”, pp. 4–8 (Nos. 2–10) and pp. 22–23 (Nos. 27–28), via Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition (1851), vol. 2, p. 661, exhibit 642 (Milner & Son), via Internet Archive. ↩︎
- safeman.org.uk, “About safes”. ↩︎
- safeman.org.uk, “Modern times”. ↩︎
- AnySafes (dealer, Cyprus), “Milners’ safe antique”, sale listing (accessed October 2026). A dealer’s figure, not a museum record. ↩︎
- safeman.org.uk, “Coming of age”. ↩︎
- International Code Council, IBC Interpretation No. 37-07 (2007), reproducing Table 1607.1 of the 2006 International Building Code, item 28 (one- and two-family dwellings). ↩︎
- HM Government, Approved Document A: Structure (2004 edition incorporating 2010 and 2013 amendments), section 2C, paragraph 2C15 and Table 4 “Imposed loads”. ↩︎
- Liberty Safe, “How to get a safe upstairs” (12 May 2020). A safe manufacturer’s guidance. ↩︎
- Health and Safety Executive, Manual handling at work: a brief guide, INDG143 (rev. 4, 2020), figure 1, “Lifting and lowering risk filter”. ↩︎
- Health and Safety Authority (Ireland), “Asbestos risks in safes and fire resistant cabinets” (information note, updated September 2023). ↩︎
- Baunetz Wissen, “Wertbehältnisse und Tresore” (in German: anchoring of safes under 1,000 kg by specialists, no extra drilling of the safe). ↩︎
- Safe and Vault Store, “Burglary ratings” (summary of UL 687 construction requirements). ↩︎
- Chatwood-Milner Duplex catalogue text and specifications in dealer listings (checked 26 October 2026): BDB Safe and Vault, “Chatwood Milner Minor”, “Chatwood Milner Major” and “Chatwood Milner Duplex Anti Blowpipe”; A to Z Safes, “Chatwood Milner Duplex Major Mk2” and “Chatwood Milner Duplex Anti Blowpipe E” (with catalogue text). ↩︎
