Any time you’re planning to purchase something, the return on investment (ROI) is an important thing to consider. Whether you’re considering buying new windows to improve on your heating and cooling costs, looking at replacing outdated appliances with newer and more efficient models, or purchasing an Intelligent Compressed Air Product, how quickly that product will pay for itself can help you to make the right decision.

Last year, my wife and I purchased our first home. In the backyard, was a nice, big in-ground pool. While it was something we did look for, it requires a bit of maintenance during the summer months to keep the water clear and things running smoothly. Who wants to swim in a pool ridden with dirt, leaves, bugs, and debris floating around? Certainly not me, which meant I needed to spend some time brushing the sides of the pool and vacuuming to keep everything clean. For our first season, we elected to tackle this task manually. Not only was this time consuming, but it was also not very effective. To brush the sides and steps, skim, and vacuum took about 2 hours each time. I was doing this 2x per week to keep everything looking good. Over the course of a 15-week pool season here in Southwest Ohio, I spent approximately 60 hours just keeping the pool clean.

We were interested in the robotic pool vacuums available at our local pool supply store, but we balked at the initial price of them. After spending all this time doing it myself, I began to think that it would pay for itself relatively quickly (depending on how much I valued my own labor 😊). Allocating the cost of the robotic vacuum over the six-year life expectancy, as well as taking into consideration how much time I had spent cleaning the previous year, made this decision much more palatable. We went ahead, bit the bullet, and purchased one for this season. I must say, just two weeks in and my pool is cleaner than it ever was last year. We’ve only run it twice!! It only takes 5 minutes to connect and drop in. I reduced my time spent from 4 hours per week to 10 minutes per week. Consider me a happy consumer.

If you follow the EXAIR Blog, you’ll know that one of our primary focuses is saving customers money by reducing their compressed air operating cost. Recently, I wrote a blog post about a customer that replaced an inefficient solution with some EXAIR Super Air Knives. Let’s take a look and see how quick these knives were able to pay for themselves:

The previous solution consisted of (3) nozzles operated at 50 psig, consuming a total of 51 SCFM. This line was run continuously for (1) 8-hour shift, (5) days per week. The average cost for compressed air is $0.25 per 1,000 SCF (based on $0.08/kWh).

51 SCFM x 60 mins x 8-hours x $0.25/1000 = $6.12 per day

Replacing the inefficient nozzles with (3) Model 110003 Super Air Knives reduced the overall consumption to 17.1 SCFM when operated at 50 psig.

17.1 SCFM x 60 mins x 8-hours x $0.25/1000 = $2.05 per day

This led to a total savings of $4.07 per day, just by swapping out the inefficient product with the EXAIR Super Air Knives. So how quickly will they pay for themselves? Each Model 110003 Super Air Knife carries a list price of $199.00. Since we were using (3) on each line, their total investment per line was $597.00 USD.

$597.00/4.07 = 146.68 (147 days)

On the 147^th day (less than 30 weeks, based on a 5-day workweek), the Super Air Knives have paid for themselves. Afterward, that $4.07/day/line goes straight to the bottom line. You’ll be hard pressed to find many products that will pay for themselves in less than one year, but at EXAIR we see this day in and day out. Stop throwing your money out the window with inefficient compressed air solutions. Reach out to an EXAIR Application Engineer and see how quickly your blowoffs can start paying YOU.

Tyler Daniel
Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD

Little things add up image courtesy of Nic McPhee via creative commons license