Before you specify
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the Dahle 20392 shred staples and paper clips?
Yes. Dahle rates the 20392 for staples and paper clips as well as credit cards and CDs / DVDs, so you can feed stapled files straight from a purge box without stripping them first. That said, metal is still abrasive; feeding a continuous diet of heavily stapled paper will wear cutting cylinders faster than plain paper will. Keep binder clips, ring binders and metal fasteners out - they are not on the rated list.
How many people can share this shredder before it becomes a bottleneck?
Dahle positions the 20392 for offices of five or more users. With 26 sheets per pass at 22 ft/min and a 16-inch throat, the limiting factor in practice is usually how fast someone can lift and align paper, not the machine. It is a shared-department or copier-room machine rather than a deskside unit. If your team is two to four people, a 23-gallon cabinet will cost far less and empty just as often.
What shred bags fit the 20392?
The bin holds 50 gallons, which falls in the range covered by Dahle 20726 shred bags (31-55 gallon shredders, 100 bags per box). Bags are not supplied with the machine. Dahle's bags are 1.5 mil plastic with gusseted sides so they open out to the cabinet's full shape. A generic contractor bag of the right size will physically work, but a thin bag tears when 50 gallons of P-5 particles are lifted out.
Will legal and tabloid paper fit?
Yes. The feed opening is 16 inches wide, so 8.5 x 14 legal and 11 x 17 tabloid sheets both enter unfolded, fed short-edge first. Whole file folders fit as well. Remember that sheet-capacity ratings are quoted for letter-size #20 bond - feeding wide stock uses more of the cutting width at once, so drop the stack size when you switch to tabloid.
How often will the 50-gallon bin need emptying?
There is no honest fixed answer, because it depends entirely on volume. As a rule of thumb, P-5 particles pack down more densely than strip-cut waste, so a 50-gallon bin holds a large number of shredded sheets - typically several thousand. A department doing a daily clear-out of a few hundred pages will empty it every one to two weeks; a records purge will fill it in an afternoon. Buy bags by the box.
Is the 20392 NSA approved?
No. The 20392 is a DIN 66399 P-5 machine and does not appear on the NSA/CSS Evaluated Products List for paper shredders. NSA/CSS 02-01 requires a particle no larger than 1 mm x 5 mm and requires the specific model to be listed on the EPL; a high DIN rating alone does not qualify a machine. If you are destroying classified material, the Dahle 20394 is the P-7 EPL-listed model built on this same chassis.
Does it need oiling, and how often?
It has an automatic EvenFlow Lubricator that feeds oil continuously across the cutting cylinders, so you are not oiling by hand after every bin change. You do have to keep the reservoir topped up with Dahle shredder oil (part 20721 in 12 oz bottles, or 20722 by the gallon), and the refill interval depends on how hard the machine runs. Do not substitute cooking or aerosol oils; they gum the cylinders.
What is the warranty?
Dahle covers the 20392 for two years on the machine and for life on the cutting cylinders. The lifetime cylinder cover is worth noting when comparing across Dahle's range: it applies to the P-3 through P-5 models, while the P-6 and P-7 high-security models carry only a one-year cutting-cylinder warranty. Moving up in security level on this chassis means moving down in cylinder cover.