Shopping for a shredder for your home or office? Here are some of the most important things to consider.

By Shred Type:

The first thing you will want to take a look at when you are shopping for a shredder is the type of shred pattern that each machine produces. For the purposes of most home and business users, there are two different kinds of shred patterns: strip cut and cross cut (governments and military shredders use a special micro cut). Strip cut shredders simply cut paper into long, straight strips, while cross cut machines create smaller diamond shaped pieces that are more like confetti. For the sake of making your confidential documents unreadable, cross cut is much better than strip cut, and is what we recommend. The only advantage that strip cutting has over cross cut is that some of the strip cut machines can handle more pages at a time than cross cut shredders can (though this gap seems to be closing and is in some cases nonexistent).

Not only are cross cut machines the wiser purchase when it comes to home and business document security, in many cases they are required by law. In 2005, congress mandated that anyone who handles the types of confidential information that can lead to identity theft if in the wrong hands is required to shred those documents when they are being discarded.

By Capacity:

There are a couple of different ways to judge the capacity of a shredder. There is sheets per pass, and feet per minute. There is no hard and fast rule of thumb for deciding the number of sheets per pass that is going to be the right one for you and your business, but for a small, personal use shredder, 6-8 sheets at a time is a good starting point. The feet per minute measurement is more a function of the motor speed and power, and will give you a good estimation of how much work you machine can do in a typical day.

For shredders that will see a large amount of work every day, you might want to look into purchasing a machine that is rated for continuous use. Most smaller shredders are meant to be used for a relatively short period of time before they will need to be shut down in order to prevent the motor overheating. Continuous use shredders, however can be used throughout the day without the need to rest and cool down. Even they, however, are not meant to be used 24 hours a day, and “continuous use” generally refers to the length of a workday.

By Ability:

Because confidential information comes in many forms these days, you might want to consider what is called a multi media shredder. These types of shredders can not only shred paper, but can handle credit cards and compact discs as well. Usually these machines have separate feed openings so that you can keep your recyclable waste separate from the disc’s and card’s plastic shards.

One thing to keep in mind is that all shredders need to be oiled on a periodic basis. Most manufacturers will give you suggested timetables for this as well as instructions on how to do it (don’t worry, it’s quite simple). If you are buying a larger capacity unit, though you might consider one that comes with a self oiling system, either standard or optional.

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Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: cross cut shredders,smaller shredders,cross cut machines, paper shredders, shredding