Hollon HS-310E 2 Hour Fire Proof Electronic Home Safe

I ordered two safes from Amazon so I will have the same write up for both of them. (I actually ordered three but one arrived damaged.) I've had these safes for about 3 months now and I have not had any problems. I settled on this safe after researching safes for over two months. The benefits of these safes are as follows: 1. No external lock - Emergency locks/keys openings are counterproductive if it's critical to keep anyone out of a safe. Tubular or wafer locks, it does not matter are flawed. There are lots of videos on youtube explaining how to pick a lock without a trace or proof of tampering. In some of the videos, kids (mostly teens and pre-teens) demonstrate various lock picking techniques. This is why I didn't want a safe with an external emergency or backup key option. 2. Fairly heavy for its size - The safes weigh about 85 pounds each. There are lots of youtube videos on how to defeat a safe based on the light weight of the safe. This safe is heavy enough to be resistant to impact opening techniques that you see online. 3. Not too heavy - This is not a 250 pound safe that is overkill for basic needs. 4. Larger bolts - The safes have two "live" bolts and two "dummy" bolts. As you can imagine the live bolts extend/retract when the knob is turned but the dummy bolts do not move at all. The bolts are larger than the bolts that I saw in Mesa, Gardall, American Security and Protex safes of a similar size. 5. Higher Quality (Part 1) - I decided to select between Hollon, Mesa, Gardall, Wilson, American Security, and a couple others because I wanted a higher quality than what you will typically find on the shelf in Walmart, Home Depot or Lowes. Other safe companies will give you more space for less money but quality concerns lead me to limit my search. 6. Higher Quality (Part 2) - There other high quality well-known safe brands that I did not list previously. Those other brands are not listed because they typically don't make safes small enough for my needs. A lot of the other high quality brands (which are not sold at your local Walmart or Home Depot) are focused on the high end markets; therefore, they don't even make small safes. This is why I was limited to Hollon, Cobalt, Gardall, Protex, etc. 7. No exposed internal reset button - Again you can find youtube videos on how to defeat a safe by accessing the internal reset button that is exposed inside of the safe. This safe does not have an exposed internal reset button. 8. External batteries - I believe there is an alert to let you know when the batteries are dying; however, I have not had the safes long enough to experience this feature. If there is a battery failure, then having external batteries is helpful. 9. Custom access code - You can customize your access code up to 16 numbers. 10. Space - Nice internal spacing for a small safe. This safe is the perfect size for our needs. 11. Bolt down security - The safes came with a bolt to secure them to the floor. 12. Removable door - If you have a lock problem, you can remove the door to take it to a lock smith for repair. 13. Instructions - The instructions are very short and easy to understand. 14. Ordering/Returns - Ordering from Amazon was easy and financially prudent (no freight charge). Returning the damage safe was easy, we just called UPS and they picked it up off of our front porch. 15. Amazon - Hollon was smart to put these safes of Amazon. That is part of the reason why I decided to offer this write-up. These safes are accessible w/o the middle man. There are some shortcomings for the safes too: 1. There is no lighting (whatsoever) provided by or in the safe. Backlighting is not provided for the keypad or the screen. A backlight on the keypad should be a fairly straight forward fix that Hollon should consider. There is no lighting inside of the safe either; however, in smaller safes this is common. 2. You can't disable the sound associated with pushing the buttons on the keypad. 3. The knob is made of plastic but does NOT feel flimsy. I seriously doubt that the knob will fail or break. 4. When you first load the batteries into the safe there is just a single beep to let you know that it's ready for usage. The screen does not light up or reflect the numbers that you've pushed unless you hit the right button first. At first I thought that the safe didn't work properly. My wife suggested I read the one-page instructions and sure enough reading the instructions helped a lot. 5. The packing was acceptable but not great - just acceptable. All three safes (including the one that I returned to Amazon) were packed in the same manner. 6. The first safe came damaged and used. The top right hand corner looked like it had impact (ie dropped on concrete) damage. We shipped the damaged safe back on the same day that it arrived. The other two safes were fine and we kept them. Minor Considerations 1. The color scheme (grey on tan) is not as offensive to the eyes as you might think when you see the safe in person. 2. There is an integrated (but removable shelf). It's integrated because the slide tracks for the self are formed from the steel inside of the safe. The actual shelf is plastic and can be simply slid out for more space. 3. The safes are made in South Korea. Again that is South Korea (not China, Mexico, or India). Hollon is very open about the fact that the safe is an import. As far as I know, South Korea is not known for producing low quality goods. After extensive searching (I searched and read reviews over the course of 2 ½ months) I settled on these safes and they have exceeded my expectations. Discouraging Ordering Incident Now I did have some issues with ordering the safes. Prior to settling on Amazon, I looked at numerous sites dedicated to selling safes. I decided to go with Amazon because they didn't have a freight charge and their return policy was fair. However, prior to ordering from Amazon, I attempted to order from two different Hollon safe dealers. I called Hollon directly and asked for dealers in my local area - metro Washington, DC. The closest dealers were in Baltimore. The first dealer said that they would have to order the safe and they had a freight charge of about $90. The second dealer actually tried to sale me another safe brand. In fact the person that I spoke to suggested that I specifically consider Gardall. The dealer said that his company had trouble dealing with Hollon. He went on to explain that Hollon offered quality products but the company was sometimes unresponsive to the dealer's inquires/requests. The dealer said that his company had trouble getting Hollon to respond when their shop received damaged goods/products from Hollon. The dealer was essentially telling me "Good product not so good customer/dealer support." WOW! I called Hollon in Texas and they directed me to this shop. In turn the shop suggested that I go with another company. I hope that the owners of Hollon are committed to providing excellent customer service in addition to providing a quality product. Overall, I would recommend this safe to anyone who needs a very secure and well-designed small safe.

With a particularly bad wildfire season this year, I wanted something to keep irreplaceables protected. Most smaller safes don't afford 2 hour protection, but something less. That was one reason I went with this one. As usual I did a lot of searching and review reading, as well as checking the Hollon web site before making this purchase. I debated between electronic and manual controls, and opted for electronic, feeling comfortable that the battery replacement is on the outside. The safe is very heavy and seems solid and secure. Only two criticisms: I'm not sure why the keypad does not have a light option, as it's hard to read (although I guess burglars would have a hard time figuring it out if they didn't bring a flashlight), and the packaging left a lot to be desired. It was not packed tight into the box, so because of its weight broke out at the corners, suffering some minor dents and releasing styrofoam peanuts. I could have returned it, but too hard to muscle around, and I have it installed out of sight anyway. All in all, I would recommend it.

If you know and understand what you are looking for then this is a very good fireproof safe but not a good security safe at all. The specs tell you this. You can pay 10 times more for safe that does both well or buy one of these and hide it. Very happy with my purchase, safe showed up un-damaged.

the safe has given us a feeling of relief. All of our cash, important papers and jewelry is now safe. I am fire phobic and I now do not have to worry about our treasures. It simply bolts to where ever you wish to put it. Convenient.

My biggest complaint about the Hollon Safe is in the dial/bolt mechanism. On the one I received it is very difficult to turn the dial when opening and closing the safe. Looks just like my Gardall Safe, but trust me it is not even close to the same quality! Gardall's dial and bolt action is smooth as silk! Gardall has solid steel bolts and the Hollon looks like solid steel bolts in the pictures, but they are pressed steel folded over and are actually hollow. I was attracted to the Prime two-day free shipping eligibility of the Hollon safe, but through Amazon, Wayfair will ship the Gardall for free in 3 to 5 days. Trust me, it will be worth the wait! Another thing that looked the same, but is different is with the way they bolt to the floor. Gardall has a recess for the bolt head and a cap allowing for a flush floor in the safe. The Hollon safe does not have the recess and the bolt head is exposed above the floor level. I returned the Hollon and ordered another Gardall. It was the easiest decision I ever had to make!

The Amazon description is wrong, the HS-310e is not UL rated. I bought one anyway, but the description should be updated to not falsely claim that Underwriters Laboratories have tested and rated this safe.

Some edges were dented, but it works and does the job I need it to do. It got here fast, it's easy to use, the price was right, and has the best fire rating I could find anywhere. It's designed to be bolted down (hardware included), so there's a hole in the bottom if you're not bolting it, but that shouldn't be a problem if kept on a lower floor and on a non-flammable surface.

Look at reviews, I wish I had. I would return it, but by the time I drug it up 2 flights of stairs and unpacked it, I can't go through the return. It is cheaply made, and it looked like it had been used because the paint was scraped off on the bottom. To open it, the digital code clicks and you turn the knob and pull, but there is no good way to pull the little plastic know and it does not open the door, unless I stick a knife in the crack and pop the door open. The direction for the reset of the password are terribly written - impossible to understand. It seems to have been written by someone in china, who does not grasp english