Powershred 99Ci 18-Sheet 100% Jam-Proof Heavy Duty Crosscut Paper Shredder Machine for Office and Home, Black/Gray 3229904

I have had the work horse of a shredder for 4 years now and I have never had 1 single problem. I don't think they make it anymore. I paid $200 for it and it has been an amazing piece of equipment. I got so tired of the cheaper machines that jammed and were basically unusable if you wanted to put 5 sheets in at a time. Think this machine can handle 15 sheets at a time. Excellent, fast, easy to empty. I also ordered a bottle of shredder oil and followed directions once a month to make sure it was oiled properly. Seriously, this might be the last shredder I ever use. A friend's mother died and I told her to bring me the paperwork and I'd shred it for her. So easy and it's kind of fun to just get it done with NO PROBLEMS, no jamming. If it gets hot, it stops and cools off. Noise level is fine. I highly recommend this shredder or the latest version. I wish I had paid $200 10 years ago because I wasted so much money and this shredder it so worth the price.

*** Update - 7 years later *** Still going strong. The infrared sensor has failed so it keeps running. I have to shut the unit off from the rocker switch in the back. Not that big a deal but not ideal. *** I'd still buy it again. I purchased this shredder 12/2008. There are a lot of reviews already but I thought I could add a few things. A reviewer commented about the mess in the shred bin. Yeah, but it is only a minor problem. All my past shredders were worse. I shredded some CDs and DVDs and they make a mess because of the paint on the non-writable side. If you jar the bin slightly and push the pile down with your hand before pulling the bin out the rest of the way, you can minimize the mess. But with CDs and DVDs, some of the stuff is so light it blows around. Someone commented about the on/off switches. There are two. A master rocker switch in back that I would guess you always leave on. The switch on top you might turn on and off. If you leave the unit on (both switches) all the time, the blue light will run and use a little power. If you really want to be green, I guess you could turn it off. I want to stress what some other reviewers said about this monster. This is by far the best shredder (and most expensive) I've owned. I owned about three el cheapos before. They all burned out. I use this at home and I'm a nut about shredding anything with any personal information on it. So I might use it more than the average household and I can't imagine ever stressing this beast. But I did give it a shot (below). For day-to-day shredding, this thing wouldn't break a sweat. It is almost overkill but I could see this unit lasting years. While vacuuming out the unit after shredding the DVDs, I looked at the business end of the shredder. There is a spindle of nasty looking, sharp metal teeth between plastic guides. The power cord is bent at 90 degrees so the unit will sit closer to the wall. Nice touch that a lot of other manufacturers should do. I had a pile of paper to shred since my last shredder burned out. It sawed through that pile in a few minutes. My old shredder would have loudly churned through the pile in about two hours. I always dreaded shredding before. Now, I'm looking for things to shred. The other thing is, this unit is very quiet. It produces a low hum as opposed to the much higher pitched whine of cheap shredders that beg for mercy if you give them a couple of sheets at a time. The teeth are metal so follow the instructions and oil them. Nuff said. Now for the main selling point. I had about 250 CDs and DVDs (old computer backups). You don't want to just toss your personal data in the trash - you have to shred that stuff. Most reviews of most shredders never mention shredding DVDs which seem a little tougher to me. This unit had no problem with the CDs or DVDs. I shredded them in groups of ten. I oiled the teeth a couple of times during the process. Awesome! I used the guide for the credit cards, CDs and DVDs. I think there are probably tougher teeth in the middle and the guide makes sure the plastics go through in the right path. The auto shutoff works as advertised. The teeth are so far down that I can't see a baby's finger getting in there. There's no way an adult's finger could get in. Maybe Gene Simmon's tongue (Kiss) could get in the slot. :-) Look no further. Buy this shredder.

This is one tough shredder. I took it out of the box and promptly shredded 5 years' worth of paper in two days; I figure at least a thousand pages plus staples, paper clips (accidentally), credit cards and CDs. I hit the hi temp cutout twice and just let it calm down for a few hours. Worked perfectly. It's a bit louder than I imagined but I think I'm too picky. This is a very good product at a great Amazon price with no shipping charge. All good. I've never used a shredder that didn't have it's problems with changing bags (I NEVER save files at work, everything is shredded as soon as I'm done with it so I have changed a few bags in my life). The first thing I did was ignore the instructions and FORGET paying for those special bags and the oil! I took the bag frame out and just let the shreds go directly into the collector. I set up an el-cheapo green trash bag in the shipping box. When the collector filled up, I poured the contents into the trash bag and what little spilled was caught by the box. Works great, no torn bags, no outrageous cost. Any large cardboard box that's tall and fairly narrow will work. I had read the reviews here before I bought the shredder and I saw the back-and-forth about the cutter oil. I'm no rocket scientist but under no conditions would I ever put a vegetable oil on machinery that will get hot - the oil HAS to break down and become gummy. Maybe I'm too tough on the machine but that's me. So, I sprayed the rollers with that old standby WD40. While it's too early to tell whether it will work in the long term, I can tell you that I've used WD40 for over 10 years on a small desk top shredder that has absolutely been abused and the little booger just keeps on working. Hope this helps! This is an addendum. I just helped one of our folks fix a jam on a small Fellowes at work. They hadn't emptied the box in FOREVER and it took us quite a while to clean it out. The shreds were packed SOLID on the underside of the cutters. Cleaned that out and fired right back up. Gotta love these things. This one at work is OLD and abused. ___________________________________________________________ It's been over two years now and although I admit that I'm not running a commercial enterprise, this is one tough shredder. I tend to be careful about letting the thermal overload protection kick in but there are just times when I have a bunch of stuff that needs to be cleared out of a year's worth of filing. Last January, I retired and cleaned out my files in one shot by putting the shredder on top of 2x4s over a BIG trash can. It was a bit cold in the garage so I let the whole mechanism cool down to about 50* and started shredding the pile. Dumped all the trash right into the trash can and the relatively low temperature kept the shredder running for the duration. I was done in record time. I now shred EVERYTHING. VERY happy with this purchase. I especially like how it will back up when it's overfilled and then just grind away 'till the stuff is gone.

This is a big improvement on all the shredders we have had before. Just wish to bin was slightly bigger to hold more waste.

Den Aktenvernichter haben wir jetzt seit mehreren Jahren im Einsatz und er ist wirklich unverwüstlich. Wir werden wieder von dieser Marke kaufen!

Funciona adecuadamente.

Sturdy, quiet and well built.

This really has to be a top-of-the-line shredder for home or small business office, and I wish I'd purchased it sooner. I had a midget "5-page" shredder before (which could only really handle a couple of sheets at a time, and even then jammed more than Smuckers), and I recently had ENOUGH. This model tells you if you've over-stuffed it. Better yet, it tells you if you've UNDER-stuffed it: an indicator light meter reveals how many pages it could handle compared to how many you put in. If the light meter only goes up a couple of bars, that means it's hungry and you need to give it more on your next go-around. This thing even detects if there's any skin touching its gaping maw, in which case it won't operate until safe to do so. Best of all, there's a "do not put a baby in here" interdiction labelled on the side of the aperture. If you think you can get away with something smaller and cheaper, you might be right...but why would you want to be?