Updated November 2026 · Southern New Hampshire
Office cleanout shredding: moving, closing or purging in bulk
Office cleanout shredding for New Hampshire offices that are moving, closing or clearing years of files at once. You get a box-count method, the real cost at 10, 25, 50 and 100 boxes, and a pickup plan that keeps the paper locked until it is shredded.
$20 per banker’s box once you reach 10 boxes. Certificate of Destruction on every job.
- $20 per large box at 10+
- Since 2007
- BBB A+
- HIPAA BAA on request
Quick answer
New Hampshire Document Shredding prices office cleanout shredding at $20 per large banker’s box (or $15 per small box) once a job reaches 10 boxes, plus $34.90 in per-job fees that include the Certificate of Destruction. A 50-box cleanout costs $1,034.90 dropped off at our Tewksbury office, or $1,194.85 with a Zone 2 pickup from greater Nashua or Manchester, and the transportation fee stays the same however many boxes we load. Book the pickup through our off-site shredding service and we shred everything at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA.
Office cleanout shredding: when a regular schedule is not enough
Most offices shred a little at a time. A cleanout is different. It is the one job where years of paper leave the building in a single week, and it usually happens because something else is changing: the lease, the business, or the people in it.
Those moments are also when paper goes missing. Movers stack boxes in hallways. A dumpster appears in the parking lot. Someone who left five years ago turns out to have kept a cabinet nobody opened. A bulk purge done in a rush is how client files end up in a recycling bin with the cardboard.
This post covers that one kind of job: the bulk purge. For the full menu of what we do, see our shredding services page. For the yearly habit that keeps a cleanout small in the first place, our post on the annual document purge explains how to run one.
Moving offices
The new space has fewer file cabinets than the old one. Everything past its retention date should be shredded before the movers come, so you are not paying to carry paper you will never open.
Closing a business
Retirement, sale or wind-down. Some records must be kept after you close, the rest must be destroyed properly. Both need a plan before the lease ends.
Retiring partner or merger
A partner’s closed files, a merged office’s duplicate records, an old branch that is going dark. Large volume, one decision, one pickup.
Going mostly paperless
Once files are scanned and checked, the paper originals become a liability. Scan, verify, then shred the originals your policy no longer requires.
Storage unit or basement
The boxes that went to a rented unit or a basement years ago. They still hold names, account numbers and Social Security numbers.
New records manager
A new office manager inherits a back room nobody has sorted. A cleanout is often the first project, and it sets the baseline for the schedule that follows.
Decide what to keep before anything goes in a box
Shredding is permanent. The single most expensive mistake in a cleanout is destroying something you were required to keep. Before anyone packs a box for us, make a keep list and have a second person check it.
Retention rules depend on your industry, your licensing board and your contracts. The IRS sets the floor for tax records, and its schedule is the one every New Hampshire business shares. Here is what the IRS page “How long should I keep records” says, in plain words.
| Record | Keep at least | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Income tax records, general rule | 3 years | IRS |
| Records if you did not report income that is more than 25 percent of the gross income on the return | 6 years | IRS |
| Records for a claim for a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction | 7 years | IRS |
| Employment tax records | 4 years after the tax is due or paid, whichever is later | IRS |
| Records for property you own | Until the limitations period expires for the year you dispose of the property | IRS |
| Years you did not file, or filed a fraudulent return | Indefinitely | IRS |
Medical, legal, school and financial offices answer to more rules than the IRS. Each has its own board or regulator, and many contracts add their own periods on top. Use the longest period that applies to each record type. Our document retention guide collects the common New Hampshire schedules in one place.
One more check before you shred: litigation. If your business has a lawsuit, an audit or a government inquiry open or likely, talk to your attorney first. Records connected to it may need to be kept regardless of their age.
A simple rule for the keep list: if nobody can name the rule that lets you shred a record, it stays in the keep pile until someone can. Shred the paper you are sure about first. That is usually most of it.
How many boxes is your office cleanout?
The box count drives everything else: the price, whether you drive or book a pickup, and how much room you need to stage the boxes. You do not need an exact number to book, but a close one saves you a phone call later.
We price by the standard banker’s box, the lidded records box about the size of a file drawer section. A full one weighs about 30 pounds. Smaller boxes count as small at $15. Odd-size moving boxes are fine, but expect us to count them by size when they arrive.
- Pack one drawer as a test. Empty a single full file drawer into banker’s boxes. Count how many boxes it filled. That is your drawer-to-box ratio for this office.
- Count the drawers and shelves. Walk the office, the file room, the basement and any storage unit. Count every full drawer, and estimate open shelving the same way.
- Multiply and round up. Drawers times your ratio gives a box count. Add a margin for the desk drawers and closets nobody remembers until the last day.
- Split keep from shred. Subtract the boxes on your keep list. The rest is your shred count, and it is the number to give us when you book.
- Bag the non-paper. Old hard drives, backup tapes, USB sticks and phones go in a separate bag. We quote them per item.
You do not need to pull staples, paper clips, binder clips, rubber bands or file folders. Remove three-ring binder hardware and the metal frames from hanging folders. Our guide on how to prepare documents for shredding has the full list, and it is short.
What office cleanout shredding costs at 10, 25, 50 and 100 boxes
Cleanouts are where the box rate pays off. Under 10 boxes we charge by the pound, 99 cents a pound. At 10 boxes or more, the price switches to $20 per large banker’s box and $15 per small one. Every job then adds $34.90 in per-job fees: $14.95 for the HIPAA filing that covers your Certificate of Destruction and $19.95 for recycling the shred.
| Large boxes | Drop-off | Zone 1 pickup | Zone 2 pickup | Zone 3 pickup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $234.90 | $364.85 | $394.85 | $434.85 |
| 25 | $534.90 | $664.85 | $694.85 | $734.85 |
| 50 | $1,034.90 | $1,164.85 | $1,194.85 | $1,234.85 |
| 100 | $2,034.90 | $2,164.85 | $2,194.85 | $2,234.85 |
Zone 1 is $129.95 and covers the Tewksbury area and the New Hampshire border towns such as Salem, Pelham, Windham and Plaistow. Zone 2 is $159.95 for greater Nashua and Manchester. Zone 3 is $199.95 for the Seacoast and points farther north. Our post on shredding pickup cost by distance shows how the zones fall across the state.
Counter tip: nine boxes cost more than ten. Nine boxes at about 30 pounds each is 270 pounds, or $267.30 by the pound, and $302.20 with the fees. Ten boxes at the box rate come to $234.90. If you are close, find the tenth box.
The other thing the table shows: on a big job, the transportation fee barely moves the total. On 100 boxes, a Zone 2 pickup adds about 8 percent to the bill and saves someone from loading 3,000 pounds of paper into a car. For three boxes, drive. For thirty, book the pickup. The full price list, including witnessed sessions, is on our shredding rates page.
Pickup logistics for a bulk purge
A cleanout pickup goes well when the details are settled on the phone, not in the lobby. These are the questions we ask, and the ones you should settle with your building before the day.
- The address and your best box count, so we confirm the zone and plan the load
- Where the boxes will be: ground floor, loading dock, or an upper floor with an elevator
- Stairs or restricted access: pricing assumes ground-level or elevator access, and a handling fee for stairs is quoted up front
- Whether the building needs the freight elevator reserved or a certificate of insurance on file
- The name of the person who will release the boxes to our driver
- A separate bag for drives, tapes and phones, quoted per item
- Whether you need a Business Associate Agreement signed before the pickup
Stage the boxes in one locked room the day before, lids on. Do not leave them in a hallway or by the door for the movers to trip over. Until our driver loads them, they are your responsibility, and an open stack of client files in a common corridor is exactly the risk you are paying to avoid.
Once loaded, the boxes stay in locked handling to our Tewksbury office and are shredded after they arrive, cross-cut, with 100 percent of the shred recycled. For very large volumes, material may be processed at a third-party certified partner plant rather than at our office. Every job ends with a Certificate of Destruction, and our page on the certificate of destruction explains what it records and how long to keep it.
We do not bring a shredder to your building and we have no office or drop box in New Hampshire. If your policy says someone must watch the shredding, book a witnessed session at our office instead of a pickup.
Moving offices: a shredding timeline that fits the lease
The move date is fixed, so work backward from it. The goal is simple: shred before you pack, so the movers only carry what you are keeping. Here is the order we suggest to New Hampshire office managers who call six weeks out.
Six weeks gives you time to settle the keep list without rushing. Four weeks out, count the boxes. Three weeks out, book, because shared buildings often want freight elevators and loading docks reserved in advance. Plan the pickup a week or two before the movers arrive, so nothing headed for the shredder ends up on the moving van.
If the office is large, split the job. A first pickup for the file room and storage, and a smaller second one for the desks and the last-day drawers. Each pickup carries its own transportation fee and per-job fees, so two is usually the right number, not five. Our shredding pickup checklist covers what to have ready on the day.
Closing a business: records, devices and the last pickup
A closing is harder than a move because there is no new office to send the keep pile to. Decide early who will hold the records you must keep after the doors close, where they will sit, and who can retrieve them. Then shred the rest while you still have staff and a lease.
Health care practices have an extra step. HHS guidance on disposal says a covered entity winding up a business may want to give patients the chance to pick up their records first, and it notes that many states require records to be kept and made available for a time after a business dissolves. Check your licensing board’s rule before the purge.
Closing does not end the duty. In 2018, HHS announced that a receiver liquidating Filefax, an Illinois medical records company that shut down during an investigation, agreed to pay $100,000. OCR’s investigation indicated the company left records of about 2,150 patients in a truck that was not locked, or let an unauthorized person remove them, and an individual took them to a shredding and recycling facility to sell. HHS titled the announcement “Consequences for HIPAA violations don’t stop when a business closes.” Our post on improper document disposal fines walks through more cases like it.
Devices deserve the same attention as paper. Leased copiers and printers often hold a hard drive. In 2013, HHS settled with Affinity Health Plan for $1,215,780 after it returned photocopiers to a leasing agent without erasing the data on their drives. The FTC’s guide to digital copier security advises checking your lease to confirm whether your company keeps the drive or the provider will overwrite it. Pull laptops, desktops, servers and phones aside for our hard drive destruction service, where drives are physically destroyed and quoted per item.
Law firms closing or merging have their own client-file rules. Our law firm file closeout plan lays out one way to sequence it. If your business is writing down how it will dispose of records going forward, start from our page on a records destruction policy.
Drop-off, pickup or witnessed for a cleanout
Here is how we would steer you on the phone. It comes down to the box count, how far you are from Tewksbury and how much proof your policy wants.
| Your cleanout | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 boxes, someone drives past Route 38 | Drop-off | No transportation fee. Five boxes come to about $183.40 with fees |
| 9 boxes | Drop-off, bring a tenth | Ten boxes at the box rate cost less than nine by the pound |
| 10 to 30 boxes near the border | Zone 1 pickup or drop-off | $129.95 to skip the loading. Drop-off if you have a van and a free afternoon |
| 30 boxes or more, anywhere in southern NH | Pickup | One flat fee per trip, and the box rate on every box |
| A few boxes your policy says must be seen destroyed | Witnessed | $1.99 per pound, $100 minimum, certificate signed in front of you |
| Drives, phones, tapes | Bag separately | Physically destroyed, quoted per item |
Drop-off is walk-in, Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, on Route 38 near the I-495 interchange. There is free parking out front and staff help you unload. Our drop-off shredding page has directions, and paper dropped off is shredded the same business day. Call (978) 636-0301 if you want to talk through a cleanout before you book.
A last word on contracts: there are none. A cleanout is a one-time job. If you want a regular schedule afterward, we can set one up, but you are not signing anything long term to get the bulk purge done.
Frequently asked questions
How much does office cleanout shredding cost?
At 10 boxes or more you pay $20 per large banker’s box or $15 per small box, plus $34.90 in per-job fees. Fifty large boxes come to $1,034.90 dropped off in Tewksbury. A pickup adds one transportation fee: $129.95 in Zone 1, $159.95 in Zone 2 or $199.95 in Zone 3, the same however many boxes we load.
Is there a limit to how many boxes you will pick up?
Give us your best count when you book and we plan the pickup around it. A large office may be easier as two pickups, one for storage and one for the last days.
Do we need to remove staples and folders first?
No. Staples, paper clips, binder clips, rubber bands and file folders can stay in. Remove three-ring binder hardware, the metal frames from hanging folders, and anything that is not paper. Put drives, discs, tapes and phones in a separate bag so we can quote them per item.
Can the movers bring our shred boxes to you?
We would rather they did not. Book our pickup for the shred boxes and let the movers handle only what you are keeping. Our driver loads the sealed boxes and they stay in locked handling to Tewksbury. That keeps one clear chain from your locked room to the shredder and the certificate.
What if our office is on the second floor with no elevator?
Our pickup price assumes ground-level or elevator access. Stairs or restricted access carry a handling fee, and we quote it up front when you book so there is no surprise on the day. If your building has a freight elevator or loading dock, reserve it for the pickup window.
How long should we keep records after closing a business?
It depends on the record. The IRS says employment tax records are kept at least 4 years after the tax is due or paid, and income tax records generally 3 years, longer in some cases. Medical, legal and financial offices have their own rules. Use the longest period that applies before you shred.
Do you shred at our office during the cleanout?
No. We do not bring a shredder to your building and we have no drop box in New Hampshire. We pick up your sealed boxes and shred them at our office at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA. If you need to watch, book a witnessed session at our office.
What proof do we get when the cleanout is done?
Every job includes a Certificate of Destruction, covered by the $14.95 HIPAA filing fee inside the $34.90 per-job fees. File it with your booking confirmation and your keep list. Together they show what you kept, what you destroyed, and when it was destroyed.
Sources
- IRS, How long should I keep records (checked November 2026)
- HHS, What do the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules require of covered entities when they dispose of PHI (checked November 2026)
- HHS, Consequences for HIPAA violations don’t stop when a business closes (Filefax) (checked November 2026)
- HHS, HHS Settles with Health Plan in Photocopier Breach Case (Affinity Health Plan) (checked November 2026)
- FTC, Digital Copier Data Security: A Guide for Businesses (checked November 2026)
- FTC, Disposing of Consumer Report Information? Rule Tells How (checked November 2026)
Book your office cleanout pickup
Give us the address, your box count and the access details. We confirm the zone, load your sealed boxes, shred them in Tewksbury and send the Certificate of Destruction for your file.
Where we shred
1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876. Route 38, near I-495. Free parking out front.
Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Witnessed sessions and pickups outside these hours by appointment.
- Pickup: from $129.95 per trip by zone
- Drop-off: walk in, 99¢ per pound or $20 per box at 10+
- Witnessed: $1.99 per pound, $100 minimum
New Hampshire Document Shredding · 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876 · (978) 636-0301 · Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.