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When you purchase a safe to keep your valuables in, you do it to keep them from being accessible to intruders and thieves. But when a safe gets jammed, the owner is the one who ends up unable to access his own property. It’s an experience that can range from mildly annoying to wildly frustrating. What should you do if this happens to you? The first thing you need to do is to determine, if you can, the cause of the safe jamming. You can do that by a process of elimination and if you figure it out, there might be some steps you can take on your own to solve the problem.
Here are several potential causes for a safe to jam and the actions that you can take to solve the problem on your own first.
CAUSE: Dead batteries in keypad
ACTION: Replace batteries
This is the simplest problem of all to fix. If the light indicators for the keypad aren’t even turning on, it’s time to change the batteries. When you do, make sure you replace all the batteries and not just one or two so that you know you’re getting good power. Even if the light indicators on the keypad are on, you should still replace the batteries as a first step towards trying to fix a jammed safe. Sometimes there is enough power to run the keypad but not enough power to operate the boltwork.
CAUSE: Jammed Boltwork
ACTION: Blunt force to the safe
If you can hear the bolt trying to function, jammed boltwork might be the reason you can’t get into your safe. Believe it or not, experts recommend giving the safe a solid kick or pounding it a few times with a rubber mallet – just remember to avoid the keypad and only hit the safe!! It’s clear that this can easily go wrong, so be careful and don’t force anything. If one good kick or several swings of the mallet don’t do the trick, call the locksmith before you damage your safe beyond the jammed state it’s currently in.
CAUSE: Lockout or time delay mode
ACTION: Wait 10-20 minutes before trying to get in again
As a safety precaution, a safe is usually set up to only allow a certain number of combination tries on the keypad before it goes into lockout mode. If you surpass that number of tries, you’ll need to take a break from trying to get into the safe. Usually waiting 10-20 minutes will do the trick, but you can consult your owner’s manual for the guidelines for your specific safe. Once the waiting period is over, try your combination again and see if it works this time.
CAUSE: Disconnected or damaged wiring
ACTION: Inspect all of the safe’s wiring for defects
No matter how great they are, electronics fail. They get disconnected and they get damaged, and they usually don’t warn you when that’s happening. If you’re not getting any signal to your keypad, inspect all of your safe’s wiring to check for loose, kinked, damaged, or cut wires. If everything looks to be intact, disconnect the wiring from the keypad and remove the batteries. Follow the guidelines that your owner’s manual lays out as to how long to wait before reconnecting the wiring and replacing the batteries. (Usually 20-60 seconds is enough.) After reconnecting and replacing, check your safe again to see if it works. If you see that any wiring is damaged, it’s time to call a technician. They will need to take a look at what is going on and try to determine what happened, and what the best way to fix the wiring problem is.
CAUSE: Deactivated code
ACTION: Have someone else try their combination or call a locksmith
If you’ve checked for all of these causes and still can’t figure out the reason that your safe is jammed, it’s time to consider the possibility that your code to the safe has somehow been deactivated. If this is a safe used by different people with multiple combinations, have someone else try their combination. If their combination works, you know the problem is with your combination. If no one else’s works or there is no other possible combination for the safe, it’s time to call the locksmith.
CAUSE: Dial isn’t working
ACTION: Blunt force to the safe
You don’t need to have an electronic safe to experience jams. Even good old reliable dial safes can end up jamming on you. If the safe isn’t opening after you’ve entered in your combination, it’s possible that the lever is stuck or something is out of alignment in the safe mechanism. Try to determine if it’s a lever issue first by stopping after you enter the first two numbers of your combination. At that point, take a rubber mallet and pound it on the door a few times. As with the keypad, make sure you hit the door and not the dial. After a few hits, continue entering the last number of your combination. You can try this process several times and it should fix the jam if it’s a lever issue. If it doesn’t work after multiple tries, the safe may be out of alignment. At that point, consult your owner’s manual for instructions on how to realign it as each manufacturer has a different set of procedures to do that.
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When you purchase a safe to keep your valuables in, you do it to keep them from being accessible to intruders and thieves. But when a safe gets jammed, the owner is the one who ends up unable to access his own property. It’s an experience that can range from mildly annoying to wildly frustrating. What should you do if this happens to you? The first thing you need to do is to determine, if you can, the cause of the safe jamming. You can do that by a process of elimination and if you figure it out, there might be some steps you can take on your own to solve the problem. 