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.