I had a box of documents with banking and personal information to shred; this gets the job done. It really does go through 12 plain documents with ease. Use some common sense with staples. Got a jam? Hit the reverse button and back out of the jam. After about 15-20 minutes of constant shredding, the overheat feature kicks in, saving the motor. Just let it rest for about 10-15 minutes. Easy to empty, do yourself and favor and do it outside. Recommend purchase, worth the money.
Since picking up this shredder, it's been well used. 20 minutes is a great amount of time to shred. The cool down is 40 minutes but I usually give an hour or longer. I've done several shred sessions a day for several days in a row with no problems. It is not very loud and really tackles those papers. I rarely do 12 sheets (or the equivalent) sticking to more like 6 - 8 at a time. I'm so glad that I bought this shredder. I like the height of the unit and have a little shredding area set up for when I'm going to shred stuff. The only problem with the unit is that, as some others have noted, the shred bin doesn't fit smoothly. A little tap or two, though, and it will fit all the way in.
I purchased this shredder today 9/11/26, with hopes it was going to work. unfortunately, that was not the case. as soon as I took it out the box and set it up, it would not shred the paper. I turned the machine off and on again several times, but nothing. the overload and overheat light kept coming on. I only tried to shred 1 piece of paper to see how it worked but that one piece of paper did not shred. I wanted to take the machine back today, but the store closed at 9pm. I WILL BE TAKING IT BACK FIRST THING IN THE MORNING AND I WANT A FULL REFUND