Does Your Shredder Do All This?

There are many shredders on the market today that cover most if not all the needs of various consumers. These office machines differ on elements such as style, volume and storage receptacles among others. No wonder buying a shredder is a confusing endeavor. It doesn’t have to be this way. Lets ignore the marketing jargon and get right to the point.

Here are a few features you need to pay attention to:

Paper width – Not all shredders accommodate the different widths of paper. Be aware of your needs. If you are primarily using this for your home office, a shredder which only slices 8 1/2 x 11 size paper might work for you. However, if this machine is going to be used by medium to large office then you would be better served to consider shredders which can accommodate all the paper widths. Its better to be aware of this fact than buy one that fits only 1-2 sizes and you spend the majority of your time folding sheets to fit the shredder’s throat.

Tip: Learning how to buy paper shredder one the web is easier than you think.

Volume – Think about your potential volume needs. Are you going to shred several dozen sheets a day or just a few every other day? The common personal shredders are recommended for about 125-175 sheets/day. That would be for a new device. For shredders which will be used by more people, they are going to see more volume.

Capacity – These machines come with a maximum capacity or a maximum number of sheets that they can simultaneously shred. Feeding 1-2 sheets of paper will take long periods of time in a shredder with limited capacity. Make sure your shredder can deal with several sheets at a time to stay efficient and be effective. Think hard about your capacity and volume needs before you step into the store.

Tip: The home office shredder is gaining in popularity these days.

Cutting Patterns – This refers to the way in which the paper is cut when it is passed through the machine. The common direction is vertically across the direction you put the sheets in. The cross-cut variety of shredders cut paper horizontally and vertically.

There are two sets of blades that cut the paper into smaller rectangles. Since they shred the paper a little better.e. it is much harder to piece together the shredded pieces of paper these cost a little more while requiring more maintenance.

Tip: A lot of people choose the manual paper shredder.