Forgot the Combination? How to Open Your Safe
A safe is an important household item with many unique uses that can offer value to any homeowner. You can use it for the obvious reasons, such as for keeping money and important documents safe, or as a way to keep family mementos safe in the case of a fire or burglary. You can also use it to protect your children by storing things in it that might pose a risk to them, such as medications and hunting tools. But all of this goes out the window when you forget your safe combination and can’t get it unlocked. Don’t panic: there is a solution for how to crack a combination safe – and it doesn’t necessarily involve calling a locksmith, smashing it off the balcony, or hoping that you will remember the combination lock code sometime soon.
Determine the Type of Safe
While it is a combination lock safe, this doesn’t exactly narrow it down. Try to find a serial number on your safe or a piece of identifying information that would indicate the make, model, manufacturer and details about the safe. This information is going to be important should you need to reach out for further assistance in learning how to break a combination lock, but is also relevant for you to be able to look into the manufacturer. In certain situations, you can call up the manufacturer, and if you can prove ownership of the safe, they will offer you a combination that allows you to unlock it. Of course, this is different for different safes and depends on whether you set the combination yourself or it came with a pre-set combination lock.
Check for Key Access
Some safes have a key override option. This set up allows you to access the safe through an alternative method, such as if emergency personnel had to open your safe, or you were to grant access to a secondary party, or if you forgot the safe combination. Not all safes have this option, but you also may not have even been aware that yours did – it is typically not advertised on the safe for security reasons. If you do realize that yours has this option, start to look for the keyhole access on the safe – and then hunt for the key. Alternatively, the key access you find may be for a change key. This is a key that allows you to reset the combination to your safe, hence giving you access. As above though, this is not always an option on how to get into a safe, and in some cases requires you to use the original combination in the reset process.
Use a Magnet
If this sounds like it is too easy, you’ll be happy to hear that the magnet you need isn’t simply one that is on your fridge. In fact, you need one that is quite rare – a rare earth magnet to be exact. These magnets are made of a different (and more dangerous) material than most magnets, samarium-cobalt alloy versus traditional neodymium. These magnets are extremely powerful, and you should not touch it with your bare hands. With the magnet wrapped in a cloth or placed in a sock, find the solenoid on your safe, by moving the magnet around near the combination lock, and once you do, the magnet should connect inside and unlock the safe.
Still no luck?
If you are still locked out of your safe and haven’t been successful in remembering your combination or in figuring out how to break the combination lock, it may be time to call in the professionals. Call a certified locksmith, to help you crack the code – and then write it down so this never happens again. (And don’t worry: your embarrassing “I forgot my combination” secret is safe with us!)
