Heavy Duty Shredder

Why would you buy a heavy duty shredder, when a light or medium duty shredder costs much less?

There are plenty of light and medium duty paper shredders available for thirty to one hundred dollars and up, but if pushed beyond their limits they easily break. A heavy duty paper shredder will cost between several hundreds of dollars to several thousands of dollars but will be significantly more robust.

I have had light and medium duty shredders burn out, never to work again, thermally overload and need to rest for a while (sometimes hours) before they are functional again, and also break gears and other parts.

Sure, most come with warranties, but I'll bet most people don't actually use the warranty on a cheap appliance, despite what they plan on doing. Life is too short.

Heavy duty paper shredders are also less likely to jam, and you probably have better things to do then spend time "un-jamming" paper shredders.

Here are the some specifications to examine to see if a paper shredder is heavy duty enough for your application:

Sheet Capacity - How many pages can the shredder handle at once. Note that the manufacturers often cite ideal numbers, and in practice they may be less. If it's claimed a paper shredder can shred 20 pages at once, it may be able to practically handle far less in normal usage, perhaps 10 or so.
Run Time - How long can the shredder run continuously. Is it rated for 15 minutes, 45 minutes, forever (continuous duty) or something different?
What can it shred? - Most heavy duty shredders handle staples with ease, but what about large paper clips, credit cards, and CD/DVDS?
Motor size - The motor size matters and obviously bigger is better. Motor size is measured in horsepower (hp) and I've seen units whose motors range from 1/3 hp to 1.9 hp.
Speed (Feet Per Minute) - How fast does it shred? For example 8 feet of documents per minute or 20 feet of documents per minutes.

A heavy duty shredder may be called something different by the manufacturer, for example professional or commercial shredders.

Don't make the mistake of getting a light or medium duty shredder for an environment, perhaps a busy office, where it'll get heavy use. It will fail or at least prove to be very problematic. Get a heavy duty shredder that will handle the load.