Life is full of change.  It might sound trite, but truer words were never spoken.  I used to get up around 6:30 on work days.  Now, thanks to my son’s middle school schedule, I’m usually seeing him out the door at that time.  Getting up earlier was certainly a difficult change at first, but it’s had its benefits.  Not the least of which is spending a little extra time with the boy in the morning.

One of our favorite things to do while eating breakfast is to watch the ‘How things are made’ types of shows. Of course, watching these types of shows with an engineer has its downside.  While we can usually explain exactly what’s happening in the process of whatever is being made, the problem is that we often do.  Meaning we wind up talking over the program, which, ironically, is one of my greatest pet peeves.  Speaking of change, guess that’s something I need to work on…

At any rate, this morning we saw a show on making saltines.  At the sight of the copper pipe positioned near where the cracker dough comes off the die-cut wheel, I knew exactly what was up. ‘They’re using drilled pipe! That’s not safe and a HUGE waste of compressed air!  That’s the perfect application for a Super Air Knife!”  Guess watching these programs with an EXAIR engineer has an additional risk: We can get a little over-excited when we see OSHA violations and wastes of compressed air! I think I about made my son jump out of his gym shorts, but he’s watched these sorts of shows with me before.  He knew the risks…

Life is full of change, and while perhaps I can get better at not talking while the TV show is on, I doubt I’ll ever stop cringing at safety violations and wasting compressed air.  Do you have drilled pipe in your plant?  If so, you could be in violation of multiple safety standards and are definitely wasting money on compressed air.  EXAIR can help you minimize harmful noise levels and keep you in compliance with OSHA’s dead-end pressure standard. Please give EXAIR a call to begin saving air and increasing safety!

Dan Preston
Engineer-at-large
DanPreston@exair.com
1-800-903-9247