10 ways to double the life of your shredder

Did you know, if you regularly maintain your wood shredder, plastic shredder or metal shredder you could double its life span?

Why look after my shredder?

Industrial shredders are a large outlay, and the finance director of your company won’t want to hand over thousands more pounds if your one breaks down within a few years and is irreparable. A catastrophe for your business, when we’re all trying to save money.

Step-by-step maintenance guide

So, follow these easy steps below and make your way towards a happy, problem-free, long living shredder. These points can be undertaken by either a service engineer or by the operator. At purchase you should be shown all parts of the machine and how it works. Fercell ensures this happens at commissioning stage.

These routine checks must take place in order for your warranty to be valid, as should be stated in your operator’s manual.  If you can’t find your operator’s manual, please get in touch with us immediately and we can organise a new one to be sent to you.

You could always print this out as a checklist and time and date stamp it to ensure these routine checks take place or organise it as a schedule so ever Wednesday you check a point at the same time, then nothing slips through the net.

• After 50 hours of operation from new: tighten bolts and screws

• Every 50 hours of operation or on a weekly basis: lubricate rotor bearing with bearing grease

• Every 100 – 150 hours of operation or on a monthly basis: retighten screws on machine frame and drive unit

• Every 250 – 300 hours of operation or on a quarterly basis: clear the space below the machine of any residual wood/plastic/textile/metal/paper pieces that haven’t made their way through the pusher. Clear chippings and sawdust via suction and not blowing

• Every 1,000 hours of operation or on a 6-month basis: perform the following checks:

1. Are the mechanical connections ok, especially gear box housing?
2. Is the screen still tightly fastened?
3. Are the belts and pulley tight enough?
4. Are the cables intact, to prevent any damage of insulation?
5. Is the emergency switch working?

I have a shredder service booked, what next?

That’s great news! Don’t forget to still do the above steps as could prevent an error occurring before the engineer arrives.

There are also some tasks you can undertake before a service takes place which will make the service more effective and will help your shredder to run more efficiently in turn. Your engineer will also thank you for it.

• Remove all covers and clean out any excess waste
• Remove all removable covers and any material accumulations
• Clean machine down right before service works commence

If you’d like to find out more about our shredder operator training, click here. Your shredder operating staff can learn to spot any issues quickly and hopefully save you a call out fee in the future.

To book your service contact our Service Manager Rob Woodhouse:

Direct dial: +44 (0)1622 882920

Email: rob.woodhouse@fercell.com