Shredders are excellent pieces of equipment to keep on hand in your business or at-home office. However, like all pieces of equipment they need to be maintained in order to run smoothly and prolong the life cycle. Here are 3 tips for maintaining your shredder:
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Oil the Shredder
Some higher end shredders come with automatic oiling features which is great if you have the shredder located at a high usage area or if it is shared by multiple people. If you have a smaller unit or an older unit that does not come with an oiling feature, you will need to manually oil the cutting blades. This only has to be done generally every 6 months (or more frequently if it is used more often). Simply place some oil on a sheet of paper (20lb bond printer paper will do) and put the paper through the shredder. As the cutting blades roll around to shred the paper, it will spread the oil and lubricate the entire blades. Now you’re ready to use the machine again.
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Choose the Right Material to Shred
The best way to maintain a shredder is to only shred the items your machine was built for. Shredders have evolved over the years to handle more than just paper and most can handle simple items like staples and paper clips. However, once you get into thicker items like CDs and Binders you need to upgrade your machine. Most pieces of bindings cannot be put into a shredder either, so when shredding bound reports or old financial statements you need to take off the binding and then you can shred the paper. Luckily all shredders come equipped with a reverse button, so if you do accidentally try to put too many sheets of paper, simply press the revers button to unjam the item. Never use your fingers to try to unjam a machine. This can lead to serious injuries, and you might get sucked into the shredder once the blades start moving.
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Call a Service Technician
If at anytime, your problem cannot be solved by oiling the machine or pressing the reverse button, it is always better to contact a service technician. Shredders might seem like simple machines, but they come with sharp blades and lots of parts that, if put back together incorrectly, will prevent your machine from starting. We have service technicians across Canada, so help is always just a phone call or e-mail away.
Maintaining a Shredder is simple; just oil the blades regularly, only shred what is allowed based on the supplier manual and never take apart a shredder by yourself. All shredders come with self-sharpening blades, so that’s one thing you never have to worry about. If at any time you have a question about your shredder, please give us a call and we would be happy to help.
