Tag: leak detection

Starting a Leak Prevention Program: Maximize Efficiency and Savings

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Compressed air systems are the unsung heroes powering countless processes across all industries. However, they come with a hidden cost: leaks. Even the most well-maintained systems experience some level of leakage, often wasting 20-30% of a compressor’s output, according to the Compressed Air Challenge. This inefficiency translates directly into higher energy bills, increased compressor wear, and unnecessary maintenance expenses. The good news? You can take control of these losses by implementing a Leak Prevention Program. Let’s dive into how to establish such a program and why it’s a game-changer for your bottom line.

Compressed air isn’t cheap—it’s often one of the most significant energy expenses in a facility. When leaks go unchecked, you’re not just losing air; you’re losing money. A single leak can cost thousands of dollars annually, depending on its size and your energy rates. For example, at $0.07 per kWh, a leak as small as 1/8 inch can waste over $2,933 worth of compressed air per year. Multiply that by dozens of leaks across a system, and the financial impact becomes staggering. Beyond the dollars, leaks force compressors to run longer and harder, shortening their lifespan and driving up maintenance costs. A Leak Prevention Program isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic necessity for operational efficiency and sustainability.

EXAIR provides resources and tools to help you design and execute an effective Leak Prevention Program. Here’s a step-by-step approach to getting started:

  1. Establish a Baseline – Before you can measure improvement, you need to know where you stand. Document your current compressed air usage by tracking compressor run times, energy consumption, and system pressure. This baseline serves as your reference point to quantify savings once leaks are addressed. To measure the total volume of air, you can implement the EXAIR Digital flow meter.
  2. Identify Leaks – Here’s where EXAIR’s Ultrasonic Leak Detector (Model 9207) shines. Leaks produce high-frequency turbulence—ultrasonic “white noise” that’s inaudible to the human ear but easily detectable with the right technology. This handheld, high-quality detector converts these ultrasonic signatures into audible sounds through headphones and displays intensity on an LED screen, allowing you to pinpoint leaks up to 20 feet away. Whether it’s a faulty fitting, a worn valve, or a cracked pipe, the detector’s precision ensures you won’t miss a thing—even in noisy industrial environments.
  3. Document and Prioritize – Once leaks are identified, record their location, size, and estimated cost. There are two main approaches: the Seek-and-Repair method, where leaks are fixed immediately, or the Leak Tag method, where leaks are tagged and logged for scheduled repairs. For larger facilities, a master leak list can streamline tracking and ensure accountability. Prioritize repairs based on leak size and accessibility—tackling the biggest offenders first maximizes early savings.
  4. Repair and Verify Fix the leaks using appropriate methods—tightening connections, replacing seals, or upgrading components. After repairs, use the Ultrasonic Leak Detector again to confirm the fixes hold. This verification step ensures your efforts translate into real results.
  5. Track Savings and Optimize Compare your post-repair compressed air usage to your baseline. The reduction in energy costs, compressor runtime, and maintenance needs will reveal the program’s ROI, then you can turn your leak prevention program into a continuous improvement process.

The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector is an important building block for this program. Its ability to detect leaks quickly and accurately sets it apart from rudimentary methods like listening for hisses (which only catches the worst offenders) or using soapy water (impractical for large systems). The detector’s portability and ease of use mean your team can cover an entire facility efficiently, even during normal operations. Its directional sensitivity zeros in on leak sources, minimizing guesswork and downtime. With minimal training, your staff can become proficient, making it a practical investment for any operation.

Compressed air leaks will rob your system of its capacity, compressor life, and electrical cost.  It is important to have a leak preventative program to check for leaks periodically as they can happen at any time.  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector and the Digital Flowmeters will help you accomplish this and optimize your compressed air system.  Once you find and fix all your leaks, you can then focus on improving the efficiency of your blow-off devices with EXAIR products like Super Air Knives, Super Air Nozzles, and Super Air Amplifiers, and save yourself even more money.  This blog is an overview of Step 2 of the Six Steps to Optimization. You may have more questions; and, that is great! You can find them in other EXAIR blogs, or you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Air Leak Photo Courtesy of the Compressed air Challenge

Understanding Pressure Requirements For Your Compressed Air System

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

One of the advantages to compressed air operated equipment is the ability to precisely “dial in” the performance by regulating the supply pressure. Consider an EXAIR Super Air Knife, for example. The flow & force can be adjusted from a “breeze to a blast” and any point in between, via a point-of-use Pressure Regulator. I know of users who operate them with a supply pressure as low as 5psig (that’s the “breeze”) and as high as 120psig (that’s the “blast”), depending on the requirements of the application.

EXAIR Stainless Steel Super Air Knives are popular in food processing applications (left to right): removing excess moisture prior to flash freezing of fish fillets, preventing clumping while packaging shredded cheese, and (my personal favorite) ensuring a consistent and even glazing of fresh, delicious doughnuts.

For a wide variety of typical industrial blowoff applications, a supply pressure of 80psig is a good place to start. So, it stands to reason that the compressed air header pressure will have to be at least 80psig. If the piping/distribution system is sized properly to carry the total amount of air flow you need to the points of use, though, it doesn’t need to be an awful lot higher than 80psig…and that’s a good thing. Here’s why:

Any fluid encounters friction as it flows through a pipe (or hose or tube) which causes a drop in pressure along every bit of the length of flow. The larger the pipe (or hose or tube) the lower the friction and hence, the lower the pressure drop. Now, that’s only important if you care about how much you’re spending on running your air compressor(s). Consider this:

We’ve got a customer that puts our Model 110042 42″ Aluminum Super Air Knives on machinery they make & sell to their customers. This Air Knife will use 121.8 SCFM when supplied at 80psig with the stock 0.002″ thick shim installed, and does the job quite well, most of the time. Some specific applications, however, need higher flow & force from the Air Knife, so our customer offers, as an option, the Super Air Knife with a 0.004″ thick shim installed. Since this doubles the air gap, it also doubles the air consumption. They’d plumbed the supply line to the Air Knife per the recommended in-feed pipe sizes from the Installation & Maintenance Guide:

Super Air Knife Kits include a Shim Set, Filter Separator, and Pressure Regulator.

Since the drop was less than 10ft long, they used a 3/4″ pipe, which was fine…until they installed the 0.004″ thick shim, which meant the air consumption doubled, to 243.6 SCFM. To get that much flow, at 80psig to the Air Knife, they had to increase their header pressure to 110psig, from the 90psig level at which they had been running. This was well within the operating parameters of their air compressor, but it made the compressor work harder, so it used more energy…and cost more to run. In fact, every 2psi increase in compressor discharge pressure results in a 1% increase in operating horsepower (source: Compressed Air & Gas Institute Compressed Air Handbook, chapter 4, page 8).

So, by increasing the discharge pressure by 20psi, the compressor’s power draw (and hence, operating cost) went up 10%. Now, I never found out what size their customer’s compressor was, but I DID look up prices for SCH40 black iron pipe, and for an 8ft length, the 1″ pipe was only $10-15 more than the 3/4″ pipe they were using. Since 243.6 SCFM is roughly 60HP worth of a typical industrial air compressor load (industry thumb rule says they use about 1HP to make 4 SCFM), we can assume that it’s at least a 75HP compressor. Using the following formula to calculate the operating cost while it’s drawing 80% of full load (while making a few reasonable assumptions):

Cost ($) = bhp x 0.746 x # of operating hours x $/kWh x % time x % full load bhp
motor efficiency

bhp = motor full load horsepower (frequently higher than nameplate HP but we’ll use nameplate 75HP to be conservative)
0.746 = conversion from hp to kW
# of operating hours (assume a month’s worth, 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, 4 weeks/month=800 hours)
$/kWh (assume $0.08/kWh)
% time = percentage of run time at this operating level (assume 85% of the time)
% full load bhp = brake horsepower as percentage of full load bhp at this operating level (assume 60HP load, 85%)
Motor efficiency = motor efficiency at this operating level (assume 95% fully loaded)

75HP x 0.746 x 800 x $0.08 x 0.85 x 0.85 = $2,723.29
.95

An additional 10% power draw changes the % full load bhp to 95%, and the cost for monthly operation is:

75HP x 0.746 x 800 x $0.08 x 0.95 x 0.85 = $3043.68
.95

That’s an extra $320.00 spent on running the compressor (per month) at 110psig discharge pressure, instead of an extra $15.00 spent on a larger pipe (one time cost) to run it at 90psig.

This is just one example of the effect of “artificial demand”, which is, essentially, wasted energy due to running your system at a higher pressure to compensate for undersized lines, leaks, intermittent high loads, etc. In addition to helping you specify the right supply line size for your compressed air operated products, we can assist with leak detection, intermediate storage, regulating supply pressures for differing loads, and replacing inefficient devices with engineered products. If you’d like to talk about any, or all, of that, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Ultrasonic Leak Detectors

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment

With energy bills skyrocketing, it becomes critical to stop the waste. Air leaks are a constant part of any compressed air system. If you do not own an Ultrasonic Leak Detector, you are throwing money away. As air lines age, leaks happen. Rust erodes the pipes. Curves, twists and turns lead to weak joints. Fittings (especially push-in fittings) and other pipe connections will degrade and begin to leak. Day-to-day wear and tear, bumps and bruises will all cause small air leaks over time. Having an air leak in your system is similar to having a running toilet in your home. You won’t see any visible damage, but when you get that utility bill!

EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector

It can be difficult to find the leaks in a large facility. The air lines could run a long way, with multiple twists and turns within your system. The area can be loud, and leaks can be very quiet… Of course the large leaks are easy to identify, see, hear and feel. But many leaks are very small, hard to locate and the noise form these leaks can be “Ultrasonic sound”, meaning that they are at a frequency between 20kHz and 100kHz, and cannot be heard by the human ear. To find these small leaks and to hear Ultrasonic sounds, you will need an Ultrasonic Leak Detector.

With this precision tool, you will be able to both hear and see where the leaks are. As you pass the Detector across the pipes the alarm lights will glow and grow, and if you have the noise canceling headphones on, you will also be able to hear the leak.

Here is an example of how costly 1 small 1/16th” leak can be:

Reach out today to discuss or order one of these money savings jewels, or any of our other intelligent compressed air products.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
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Determining Leakage Rate and Cost of Compressed Air Leaks

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

The electricity costs associated with the generation of compressed air make it the most expensive utility within an industrial environment. In a   poorly maintained compressor system, up to 30% of the total operational costs can be attributed simply to compressed air leaks. While this wasted energy is much like throwing money into the air, it can also cause your compressed air system to lose pressure. This can reduce the ability of the end use products to function properly, negatively impacting production rates and overall quality. Luckily, it’s quite easy to estimate the leakage rate and is something that you should be including in your regular PM schedule.

According to the Compressed Air Challenge, a well-maintained system should have a leakage rate of less than 5-10% of the average system demand. To estimate what your leakage rate is across the facility, first start by shutting off all of the point of use compressed air products so that there’s no demand on the system. Then, start the compressor and record the average time it takes for the compressor to cycle on/off. The compressor will load and unload as the air leaks cause a pressure drop from air escaping. The percentage of total leakage can be calculated using the following formula:

Leakage % = [(T x 100) / (T + t)]

Where:

T = loaded time (seconds)

T = unloaded time (seconds)

The leakage rate will be given in a percentage of total compressor capacity lost. This value should be less than 10% for a well-maintained system. It is not uncommon within a poorly maintained system to experience losses as high as 20-40% of the total capacity and power.

A leak that is equivalent to the size of a 1/16” diameter hole will consume roughly 3.8 SCFM at a line pressure of 80 PSIG. If you don’t know your company’s air cost, a reasonable average is $0.25 per 1,000 SCF. Let’s calculate what the cost would be for a plant operating 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

3.8 SCFM x 60 minutes x $0.25/1,000 SCFM =

$0.06/hour

$0.06 x 24 hours =

$1.44/ day

$1.44 x 7 days x 52 weeks =

$524.16 per year

A small leak of just 3.8 SCFM would end up costing $524.16. This is just ONE small leak! Odds are there’s several throughout the facility, quickly escalating your operating costs. If you can hear a leak, it’s a pretty severe one. Most leaks aren’t detectable by the human ear and require a special instrument to convert the ultrasonic sound created into something that we can pick up. For that, EXAIR has our Model 9061 Ultrasonic Leak Detector.

ULD_Pr
Model 9061 ULD w/ parabola attachment checking for compressed air leaks

Implementing a regular procedure to determine your leakage rate in the facility as well as a compressed air audit to locate, tag, and fix any known leaks should be a priority. The savings that you can experience can be quite dramatic, especially if it’s not something that has ever been done before!

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