Best Home Paper Shredder for You

How to Find the Best Home Paper Shredder for You

With the ever-increasing threat of identity theft many people decide to look for a home paper shredder to give them comfort that their confidential information is properly destroyed. There are so many types and brands of shredders available on the market today that finding the best home paper shredder for you can seem like an overwhelming task. Here are a few things to remember in your search...

Manual versus Automatic Paper Shredders

Manual shredders are very affordable and easy to use. They simply sit on your desk and shred any papers that you feed into the throat of the machine. Generally, you have to crank a handle that moves the paper through the blades that shred it, but if you start to shred larger volumes of paper this can begin to feel like a lot of effort.

Most of the manual shredders are only able to shred paper, but some are able to shred CDs or credit cards, and you may want to consider one of these manual paper shredders as an option if you are shopping on a budget

Automatic paper shredders are designed to do all the work, and the best home paper shredders on the market today are automatic. A sensor is built into the machine that tells it to start shredding when the paper is introduced, and to stop shredding once the paper has passed through the throat.

There are lights and alerts that inform you of a paper jam, and the best shredders come with a reverse switch that will help you back the paper up and clear any blockages that are causing the paper jam.

Shredder Capacity

Be sure to find a shredder that is able to handle the volume of shredding that you require, as each shredder has different capacities. The best home paper shredder can handle as many as 1000 sheets of paper per day, while other quality shredders may only handle 400 or 500.

If you are going to be shredding more than 1000 pages you may want to consider an office shredder for use in your home. However, the shredder for the average household is usually required to shred between 400 and 600 sheets per day.

Security Levels

Security is another important consideration, and you should evaluate how small you need the paper shredded. If you are trying to shred very sensitive documents, you may want to consider a shredder that can shred paper into quarter inch strips.

Whilst many review sites suggest that the best home paper shredder should shred the paper into eighth-of-an-inch strips this may be excessive unless you have documents that have to be destroyed at all costs.

Speed of operation

The higher the horsepower of the motor that powers the shredder, the faster your paper will shred and the less likely the shredder will be to jam up. It is definitely worthwhile looking for a paper shredder that has a high horsepower motor.

Waste Basket

Another key aspect to consider is the wastebasket that comes with the shredder. It is standard for shredders to have the bin or bag integrated but you should read reviews from existing users of the shredder to find out how easy it is to empty this and replace the shredder bag.

If you are looking for in-depth reviews of the best home paper shredders just visit our Best Shredder Reviews website. We also show you where you can purchase home paper shredders for up to 50% off...

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Heavy Duty Paper Shredders Vs High Security Shredders

Heavy Duty Paper Shredders Vs High Security Shredders

Heavy Duty Shredders are engineered to shred high piles of paper sheets 24 hours as required and show no signs of hold-ups and performance squalor. Whereas High Security Shredders are the shredders with relatively smaller cut size as compared to the conventional departmental crosscut or office strip cut shredder. The basic difference between the High Security Shredders and Heavy duty shredders is of the cut size. Both Heavy duty shredders and High security shredders bring similar features for an organization despite the cut size and offer complete capabilities with Feed Opening to input material to be shred, cutting module or shredding blades confined in an internal box, and waste container for controlling shredded mess.

Introduction to Heavy Duty Commercial Paper Shredders

Heavy duty shredders can be strip cut, crosscut, or micro cut depending on the configuration required in an organization. Beside regular shredding features and capabilities, heavy duty shredders are known for:

Continuous Shredding

Heavy Duty or commercial purpose shredders can perform continuous shredding for longer hours without a hold. Complete with powerful motor and robust steel cutters, these shredding machines can run 24 hours without registering a lost or performance downfall. Sturdy motor is protected against overheating or overload stress and facilitates non-stop shredding in rigorous industrial and commercial environment where document protection is essential.

Protection against Paper Jams

To run consistently without jams, these shredders are designed to encounter and resolve jams in an automated fashion. This intuitive shredder buy reverses excessive amount of paper sheets when observed a potential paper jam or automatically turns off shredding and indicate possible jam with an optical signal or notification on the user screen. This auto protection against unwanted and irritating paper jams saves times and resources spent on shredding.

Feed with Conveyor Belt

Another well-known feature of industrial shredders or heavy duty shredders is the availability of Feed Table with a Conveyor Belt. The conveyor belt simplifies the feed of bulk paper sheets, documents, folders, bounded papers, or crumpled paper sheets into the Opening and improves ease-of-input with convenient electronic put in.

Ultimate Shredding Machines

Paper Shredders are the ultimate shredding machines and these machines can shred almost all office waste including plain paper printouts, crumpled papers, cardboard boxes, Office documents, Paper or Plastic Folders, Files, bounded paper sheets with staples or paper clips, CDs, DVDs, Magnetic Disks, Floppy Disks, and piles of papers.

Introduction to High Security Paper Shredders

High Security Shredders are the usually the crosscut or micro cut level 5 and level 6 shredders. These shredders are less prone to customized configurations as compared to heavy duty paper shredders. Here are the silent requirements and known features of High Security Paper Shredders:

Compatible with Different Standards

High Security Shredders are most widely used in highly sensitive governmental, military, and defense organizations. Therefore, High security shredding machines are made compatible with different standards. The most common security standards for paper shredders are NSA, CSS, and DoD approved shredders.

Shred-able Material

High Security Shredders are frequently paper only shredders. These shredders can shred paper sheets and make them completely undecipherable and unreadable, preventing unauthorized access.

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How to Choose The Best Shredder That's Right For You

The Best Paper Shredder: How to Choose The Best Shredder That's Right For You

You already know you need a paper shredder. Buzz words like identity theft protection and HIPAA and FACTA compliance have been floating around long enough to catch your attention. You want to keep yourself, your employees and your customers from being counted among the more than 900,000 victims of identity theft each year. Now what? With hundreds of shredders on the market how do you choose the right shredder for your individual needs?

Answering a few simple questions about your shredding needs will give you the necessary tools to find the paper shredder that's right for you.

• How many people will use the shredder every day? Will it be the members of your household or will it be your entire staff or department?
• How much paper will you shred in a day? This will be partly determined by the number of people using the same shredder and may vary from one sheet to hundreds of sheets.
• How large is the paper you will most commonly be shredding? The throat of a shredder is the opening documents must fit through and varies in size from a standard 9" throat to a wide 16" or larger throat.
• What level of security are you looking for? Strip cut, cross cut, confetti cut and CD shredders all offer different levels of security by shredding paper, CDs, credit cards or floppy disks into long strips, small pieces, or unidentifiable particles.

Paper shredders are broken up into categories based on their power and capacity. The most common classifications are home, office, commercial or departmental and industrial. Within these categories you can also find specialty CD shredders and high security shredders. The following categories break down paper shredders according to the features listed above.

Home Paper Shredders

If all you have to shred are personal bank statements, receipts, cancelled checks and some junk mail, you need a personal home shredder. Designed for light use, a home paper shredder typically accommodates the light duty shredding needs of one to two people and accepts 3 to 10 sheets of standard sized paper at once. Home paper shredders are available in strip cut and cross cut models. Strip cut shredders quickly shed documents into long strips of paper. A cross cut shredder typically shreds fewer sheets of paper at a slower rate, but offers more security, leaving nothing larger than a 2" x 1/4" piece of paper. Home paper shredders are available with durable cutting heads that accept staples and paper clips and are often no larger than a small trash can.

More and more families are using paper shredders in their homes and manufacturers are striving to make home paper shredders child-safe by installing smaller openings and adding off switches. Fellowes has come out with a light duty shredder with "safe sense" technology that will keep the fingers of your little ones safe by immediately stopping the shredder when the paper entry is touched. Some models also have unique safety locks to prevent the shredder from accidentally being turned on.

Office Paper Shredders

It's not only smart for small offices and small business owners to use a paper shredder, it's the law. The FACTA Disposal Law requires all businesses and employers to properly dispose of the personal records they collect from employees and consumers. HIPAA regulations require healthcare facilities and the businesses that contract with them to protect the privacy of their patients by properly disposing of records. Designed to guard against identity theft and to protect patient confidentiality, FACTA and HIPAA make shredding a necessity for a business of any size.

Office paper shredders are designed to meet the shredding needs of several users, typically handling up to three cases of paper per day, 10 to 35 sheets at a time. Office shredders are available with a range of throat sizes from 9" to 15" to handle paper of all sizes. Some strip cut office shredders have the ability to also shred CDs, credit cards and floppy disks. Cross cut office shredders increase the level of security by reducing your documents to pieces as small as 1/16" x 9/16".

Commercial Paper Shredders

Commercial shredders are designed to shred up to 80 sheets of paper at once. Wide throats up to 16" and larger handle paper of any size. These heavy duty shredders are available in strip cut or cross cut models and easily shred through staples and paper clips and often handle CDs, credit cards and floppy disks. Some commercial shredders are available with hoppers and conveyor belt feed systems to automate the shredding of large volumes of paper.

Industrial Paper Shredders

In-house industrial paper shredders are designed to meet the shredding needs of several departments or even an entire facility in the most cost effective, convenient and secure manner possible. Industrial shredders are engineered for maximum performance, handling up to 140 sheets of paper at once and up to 1000 pounds of paper products per hour. With extra wide throats to handle virtually all paper sizes and high volume waste containers, industrial shredders can meet the most demanding shredding needs. These heavy duty shredders are available in strip cut, cross cut or CD shredding models. Many industrial shredders come with hoppers, conveyor belts and balers to increase efficiency and reduce the volume of waste produced.

Special industrial shredders, known as cardboard shredders, turn cardboard boxes into packing material by perforating, shredding and padding the cardboard with specially designed cutting mechanisms.

CD Shredders

Designed to safely shred CDs, DVDs, credit cards and floppy disks with specially hardened solid steel cutting cylinders, CD shredders are essential for secure digital data disposal. CD shredders vary in terms of power and capacity from light office duty CD shredders all the way up to industrial heavy duty CD shredders. When choosing a CD shredder, first determine whether you need an office, commercial, high security or industrial shredder, then choose a CD shredder from the appropriate category. CD shredders are available in strip cut and commercial size cross cut models to meet your specific security needs.

High Security and Government Use Paper Shredders

When you have top secret documents to dispose of, a high security shredder offers superior shredding security by reducing documents to unreadable particles. To receive the classification of high security, a shredder must be able to reduce a letter sized document to 6,000 pieces or more. For even more security, Level 6 NSA and CSS approved shredders are required to reduce a letter sized document to 12,000 particles or more. Due to the extremely small shred size, high security shredders typically only accept up to 14 sheets of paper at once. Depending on the document size and the volume of high security shredding you have to do, you can choose a high security shredder with an office sized waste basket and standard 9" throat or a shredder with a large commercial sized waste container and wide 16" throat.

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