Tag: building

Compressed Air Use in the Construction Industry

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

My drive to work involves passing through a growing neighborhood in the northeast suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a wooded lot get cleared & graded for construction of a new house. A week or so ago, heavy earth-moving equipment was digging the basement foundation…and adding to the traffic as huge dump trucks carried the dirt away. Fast-forward to this morning, when I saw that the 2×4 framing of the walls and the placement of the roof joists were almost complete. The backhoes and dump trucks on the lot have been replaced by a small fleet of carpenter’s work trucks, a ‘porta-potty’ (a real plus, considering the number of workers spending 8–10 hours a day on a site that was the utility equivalent of a primitive campsite)…and an air compressor.

Compressed air has been used in construction since ancient times, when manually operated bellows devices were used to stoke fires to increase the temperature inside furnaces that were used to make metal tools and building materials. The first large scale industrial use of compressed air on a construction project was the building of the Mt. Cenis tunnel in Switzerland. Tunnel construction began in 1857 and was expected to take at least 25 years, with some estimates projecting a timeline of over 70 years. However, technical innovations – like the development of pneumatic drills that replaced steam-operated machinery – allowed them to complete it in only 14 years.

In addition to the pneumatic nail guns and impact drivers being used at the new home site along my daily commute, compressed air has a number of other uses in the construction trades. It’s used for excavation, to power de-watering & sludge pumps, hoists, and even material conveyors. For example, a contractor that was building a large fence on sandy terrain used a Model 150200 2″ Heavy Duty Line Vac to remove sand from the hollow fence posts after using hammer drills (which are also air operated, so you know) to anchor them in place. Another user got a Model 151250 2-1/2 NPT Threaded Heavy Duty Line Vac to remove light dirt & sand from holes they dig to set posts in. Both power their Line Vacs with diesel-fueled 185 CFM tow-behind compressors.

Heavy Duty Line Vac: Hardened Alloy Construction and High Performance

EXAIR Air Knives are also used by construction companies. One of our customers bought a Model 110218 18″ Aluminum Super Air Knife Kit to blow an air curtain onto a conveyor to separate filter fabric out of recycled asphalt. Many lumber & building material manufacturers use them to blow off sawdust and loose debris from plywood, OSB board, roofing shingles, etc.

Top: 108″ Super Air Knife is supported & aimed via an array of Model 9060 Universal Air Knife Mounting Systems.
Bottom: Mounting Systems can be ‘overkill’ for some smaller applications, especially when the user is creative. Yes, that’s a door hinge. No, it wasn’t my idea, but I kind of wish it was.

Another customer uses a Model 6901 Spill Recovery Kit with their Model 6395 55 Gallon Premium High Lift Reversible Drum Vac System for cleaning up spills of hydraulic oil from their equipment at construction job sites. The ability to vacuum it up without dragging an electric cord from a shop vac through the puddles of oil is a real plus for them.

The EXAIR Reversible Drum Vac System converts a drum and dolly into a mobile pumping system.

And back to the Line Vacs, an electrical contractor uses a Model 6086 3″ Aluminum Line Vac to pull wire through stretches of underground conduit that are too long for standard fish tapes. They can pull the fish line through 120 feet of conduit in about 30 seconds. The Line Vac also removes any debris that might have accumulated inside the conduit between installation and wire pulling.

If you’re in the construction industry – or any industry, really – and would like to discuss a potential application for engineered compressed air products, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Five Stages Of A Team

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

When a team is formed there have been many studies conducted on the science behind what happens. One of my favorite takes on this are the five stages of a team. These stages are cyclical and will repeat themselves over time with the length of projects and shifting of team positions. The stages are, forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. So what does this have to do with compressed air and industrial processes?

Well, when EXAIR and BETE joined forces, the cycles immediately began, and I believe we have moved through some of these stages fairly quickly. You see, Tyler Daniel, Neal Raker, and myself all recently had the privilege of going up to the BETE facility and spending the better part of a week getting to know some basics of their vast product offering, how they have been doing business for nearly 75 years and, most importantly, we got to meet a portion of the team there. As we toured the facility and met a good portion of the team there, it felt as though I was walking through EXAIR’s facility as well. We got to see what has made BETE a leader in spray nozzles for nearly 75 years and I would definitely say a good portion of it is the TEAM. The welcome we received and the short time we got to spend with these people, made clear that their intent was to make sure the customers were always taken care of and there was a lot of pride in the products they were producing. It legitimately felt like I was walking through EXAIR as a new team member.

Throughout the training and time we spent there, we got to know each other even better. It was almost as if we didn’t need the forming and storming phase. We pretty well jumped straight into the morning phase because our cultures and focus were all very similar. So, what does this mean for all of our customers?

It means that now when you are reaching out to either company, we can help from start to finish with any type of liquid nozzle or point of use compressed air application, and it should come to you as a seamless team effort from both sides of BETE and EXAIR. We’re hitting as many points as we can with both teams so that we can reach the performing stage and really start seeing the end users, our customers benefiting from these collaborations.

I know this may sound cliché. I’m absolutely excited to see what these next few years bring because I can guarantee that these two teams are combining forces, and we are going to have some great output that can really improve the performance, production, and efficiency of current liquid and compressed air applications through the roof.

If you want to discuss any spray application or point of use compressed air application, please make sure to reach out to us directly. We will get the best team on the application and make sure you get the solution you need when you need it.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

You Have To Start Somewhere.

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

The school year is in full swing here in Cincinnati and all three of my daughters have different extracurricular activities they partake in. This fall, that equates to divide and conquer for my wife and me 4 nights of the week for practices then the weekends are also separate and conquer, but mainly on Saturday. This eats away at times we would typically use at home to get some walking in or even just generally getting stuff done. This schedule combined with working earlier has caused me to lose almost all workout desire. That is until I got to the first practice my oldest had which just happens to be held on my alma mater’s campus and is right next to Nippert Stadium.

When we arrived I noticed most parents were just hunkered down in their cars and watching movies or doom scrolling social media. I try to avoid doing that for 90 minutes straight if I can and so far I have. I started hitting the stairs at the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium with my 35-pound ruck on my back. While my goal is to be able to complete the standard they have for their 9/11 memorial event I also want to get back into the shape I was in when I did back-to-back GORUCK events and could crank out burpees without crying on the outside. After going up one column of stairs from the field to the concourse level I go across and down the next set until I have done every column of stairs that go from the concourse to the area directly. For their event, I have to complete two laps which will equate to the number of steps within one of the towers.

So to train, I started with seeing how many sets I could do without feeling like I was going to not be able to reach the top and walk to the car. Surprisingly, I was able to get about half of the stadium done. Then I still had another hour to kill, so I hydrated a bit and rucked on over to the track/soccer field where I could walk the track and watch co-ed intramural flag football games while I did laps. Finally, I threw in some ruck PT exercises as a cool down and ended back at the building her practice was in. When I got to work the next day I felt like I got beat with a sack of oranges from my waist down. Then, on Thursday the thought crossed my mind as I hadn’t slept much the night before to just relax, then I had a buddy ask if he could come do stairs with me, and so we did it again Thursday night.

So from now until the end of the school year, I will more than likely be rucking on or around UC’s campus and Nippert Stadium to ensure I get back into a reasonable condition without having to lose more time with my family. This isn’t always easy and doesn’t come without pain. That pain though comes with added energy and increases in my mental position as well, so I am open to more things.

The same thing can be said about an industrial compressed air system. If you just trudge through every day and don’t look at any part of your facility, it is going to cause some pain when you first start to look at it. The first step is to acknowledge that something needs to change, and you have to have that finished goal of more capacity and capability available. The best place to start on your compressed air system is at the start with mapping out the system and getting a base measurement of where you are at for consumption.. This is the first step in our 6 steps of compressed air optimization, and we can help with every step along the way, You just have to reach out to us, your accountability partner for efficient compressed air.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

When To Ask An Expert

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

With the Springtime comes many outdoor activities in our house. Sometimes they are new, such as archery which just came about in our house in the last couple of weeks.  The other item that it is time for is our family garden. While we have not started any plants from seed this year, and the opportunity to get to a garden center to purchase plants may not happen, we still want to be prepared.  To do that, we prepared the same plot we have used in years past and laid down some landscaping fabric to try and kill off any unwanted weeds that have already started to sprout up through the dirt.

The next activity was to get the tiller out and perform a tune-up/maintenance on it. Sure enough, first, pull and the cord on the trusty engine lets go. The cord didn’t merely break, it looked like something from the Three Stooges as I almost fell backward from my pulling momentum and very nearly punched myself in the face. I proceeded to disassemble the pull-cord cage and found myself in unfamiliar territory.

Pull-Cord Assembly aka Punch-self-in-face-maker

Had this been another part of the engine, the carburetor, electrical kill switch, engine internals, or even the final drive to the tines, I would have been okay. Oddly enough, I have never had to replace one of these recoilers or the rope that comes on them. When you go to YouTube and search for a topic like this you will find a rather large amount of ways to perform a task like this.

Rather than doing that, I enlisted the help of a close friend who has worked for a lawn care/landscaping company for over a decade. He maintains every piece of equipment the company owns and uses. Needless to say, he has replaced quite a few pull ropes in his time.  When I called, due to social distancing we couldn’t meet in person, he, of course, asked several questions about the tiller and in the end helped me to make sure I had the correct replacement rope.

We then set off to walk through the process and the entire thing took less than 15 minutes.  When it was said and done the pull-start felt better than it had ever since I owned the piece of equipment and after sitting since last year still started on the second pull. Thank God for ethanol-free fuel that is still available at certain locations.

All repaired and ready to till!

The point of this story is, what is received and viewed as a simple task for one can be a monumental task for someone else. While my mechanical aptitude was sufficient, I lacked the training and understanding as to why you would perform this process in a given order. My friend, the expert, did not lack that at this point in time. This process was something that was second nature to him.

This is very similar to point-of-use compressed air applications and the EXAIR team. Our team has experience from a multitude of industries and we all focus on utilizing compressed air efficiently and effectively. If we don’t know the process (which is rare) we are willing to learn and ask questions until we understand enough about your application that we can make an educated recommendation for an optimal EXAIR product. We are all here to help each other and to help our customers achieve their goals, so contact us when you need an expert.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF