Office Shredders

[Jan Regnier]

We are looking to replace our current office shredder.  Purchased a $300 Fellowes shredder a couple of years ago but now that we are doing more shredding we need to upgrade to a more robust piece of equipment.

Has anyone purchased an office shredder recently that would be recommended?  Will get cross-shredder but not sure how "robust" we need to go.  There doesn't seem to be a middle ground for this piece of equipment.  They seem to be either a couple hundred bucks or several thousand....very little between those two numbers.

[Jeff Zylstra]

We've been buying some used office equipment lately.  Things that come off lease and are only a year or so old.  Things like fax machines, laser printers, etc., that don't suffer a lot of mechanical wear and tear and are newer technology. 

We have a good local office equipment dealer and they go through them before we buy them.   They're about half the cost of a new item and we've never been burned doing this, so I don't hesitate recommending doing this since most pieces of equipment have a counter to let you know how much wear and tear to expect.  I'd check with a local equipment and see if they have anything.  You never know.

[Charlie Charbonneau]

Why not pick up a shredding service?  Typically they drop 3 bins around your office, come once a month and charge for the pickup only.  Our service is only $75 for all 3 bins.  Bins are locked and I have a key if needed.  Paper is recycled and and if you have the room you can recycle all paper not just sensitive info.  Shredding is done on site with a shred certificate supplied.

[Jan Regnier]

Charlie, I don't think a service would be economical for us... but I will take a look at what the pricing is though...

Jeff - I don't know that a shredder would one of those pieces that would be "lightly used" at the end of a lease cycle.  I think it may be more of a "very used" piece - but it's certainly worth looking into.

Thanks, guys...

[Jeff Zylstra]

Jeff - I don't know that a shredder would one of those pieces that would be "lightly used" at the end of a lease cycle.  I think it may be more of a "very used" piece - but it's certainly worth looking into.

Thanks, guys...

I believe that ours has a counter on it, and the little "gears" that do the shredding our supposed to have a life expectancy.  That said, you may be right since all manner of thing beyond simple staples can get sucked into shredders.   

Ours is supposed to be a heavier duty unit with easily replaceable parts, so I decided to go for the heavier duty unit instead of something that is new.  If you don't mind delivering your boxes once a month or so, there are services that will do them for $5-10 a box.  If that is convenient to you, that may also be an option.

[Mark]

We use a service as well.  I have no idea what it costs, but we have one bin.  They swap it with an empty one and shred it on the truck in our parking lot before they leave.

We do have a shredder somewhere, but it's very small and looks to be 100 years old or so.  It still works, and people use it.  I think more along the lines of personal papers that you might have, but not really sure what people use it for since we have the service.

[Billy Welsh]

Our old one kicked the bucket about 5 years back and we replaced with an OZTEC model that cost ~ $2k.  One of their selling points is that it will shred a penny, and they demo that for you - it is not an idle boast.

So, staples, paper clips, DVDs/CDs are no worries at all.  It has only required service once in 5 years, and it was electrical  related - not the shredding mechanism.  And that may have been a result of operator error - I cannot recall.

[DebAmstutz]

We also use a shredding service - two bins (that sometimes get overfilled) and service every three weeks for $61.20.  I KNOW there is a lot of stuff that would not need to be shredded that goes into those bins, too.  The nice thing is, if there are a couple extra boxes around when they come, they'll dump those into the truck and shred for no extra cost.  They too shred onsite before leaving.  If you opt for a service, make sure it is one that shreds onsite.  You don't want your unshredded items flying through the skies in the event of an accident!

Since Jan's business doesn't need a whole lot of shredding, I'm thinking they could get a service for maybe every other month at about the same cost as a robust in-office shredder that would need to be replaced in 2-3 years.

[Hans Manhave]

We have a GBC Shredmaster from long ago that has been a real workhorse.  We use a shred service also.

Maybe you can find something on this website:
www.gbc-shredder.com/office_shredders.htm

Considering how fast it shreds, quantity and size to be shredded,  frequency of shredding, if one needs to worry about paperclips and staples etc all need to be considered.

[Sherry Burrell]

We use a service also - they only come once every 3 months and one bin (large 65 gallon garbage can)  We are a small office so this is plenty!

We had had a heavy duty shredder, but it had to be serviced so often, plus somebody has to do the shredding, and it was NOISY!

[Jim Jensen]

A client uses a shredding service and that's probably where I'll go when our current one croaks. I think he pays about $25/month. He's a single-guy shop, but we also have multiple providers here now, so there is competition to help lower the cost. I'm sure the cost depends on the frequency of pickup. A nice the service provides is the ability to just dump a ton in when it's time to shred a full year's worth of cancelled files or other large, infrequent needs. Also helpful when the carrier sends out a 3" thick policy dec that you need to get rid of - quite annoying when you have to take it apart to shred in parts versus dropping in the bin.