Tag: leak repair

Save Money With Engineered Products, Then Save More Money With Rebates

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

One morning last summer, I turned on the water in the shower and waited for it to warm up. And waited…and waited. It was clear something was wrong, so I checked the water heater to find it emptying its contents into the floor drain, through the bottom of the tank, which I found later had rusted away. Between my better-than-average plumbing skills, having a son home from college, and finding out I could keep about $800 in my pocket if I bought a new one and replaced it myself, I woke the boy up (which turned out to be one of the more difficult tasks in the process), drove to my friendly neighborhood home improvement center, and bought myself a new water heater, and we had hot water by the time my wife got home from work that afternoon. Considering the way it started, it turned out to be a pretty good day. Not only was it more efficient (and therefore cheaper to run) than the one I replaced, the water heater I bought also qualified for a rebate, which increased my savings on the project to almost $900. That was some FANTASTIC icing on an already pretty decent cake.

Rewards like this for being energy conscious have been routinely offered by utility companies for years now. One time, I got a box of LED light bulbs, enough weather stripping for TWO houses the size of mine, and water-conserving shower heads, for free, from my electric company as part of a home energy audit. That was a pretty good day too.

Many utility companies across the country have similar programs for residential customers, and commercial ones too. Duke Energy (my free light bulb folks), for example, has a program they call Smart$aver that offers rebates and other incentives to companies for making energy-efficient improvements. Equipment that qualifies for these incentives includes process pumping systems, insulation for injection molding machinery & pellet dryer ducts, low friction v-belts for rotating machinery, and compressed air equipment.

That last one is what I wanted to write about today. It includes improvements to the supply side:

  • Receiver tanks
  • Cycling air dryers
  • Zero-loss condensate drains
  • Compressed air system audits

And the demand side:

EXAIR can help you out with the ones on the demand side. Consider:

Ultrasonic Leak Detector: this handheld device allows you to quickly & easily find leaks in your compressed air system.

EXAIR Model 9207 Ultrasonic Leak Detector filters out audible sound waves and focuses on the ultrasonic sound generated when compressed air finds its way out of a loose fitting, crack, etc. The parabolic disc (left) lets you find the area of the leak(s) and the tube extension (right) directs you to the precise location.
The copper tube used to have a crimped end that was aimed at the part in the chuck. They simply cut it off and used a compression fitting to install the Super Air Nozzle.

Super Air Nozzles: not only will these products get you a rebate, they’ll cost less to operate and will ensure OSHA compliance with regard to your use of compressed air. And they’ll do it quieter, to boot.

Replacing open-ended blow offs with Super Air Nozzles is oftentimes quick and easy. Compression fittings can be used to install them directly onto the ends of existing copper tubing. Stay Set Hoses can replace modular hose, which is great for machine tool coolant delivery but often misapplied for air blowing.

And frankly, I think the engineered products just look better too.

The Duke Energy Smart$aver program is for their customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. If that’s not you, though, North Carolina State University’s NC Clean Energy Technology Center has a comprehensive Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency – DSIRE – that’ll help you find what’s available in your area.

Compressed air isn’t free. Heck, it isn’t even cheap. If you want to find out how much you can save by optimizing your compressed air system in Six Steps, give me a call. And if you want to sweeten the deal with rebates and incentives, contact your local utility company.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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The Cost of Compressed Air Leaks Create the Need to Find and Fix

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Leaks can cost you

As margins get tighter and cost of manufacturing climbs, industries are looking into other areas to be more economical.  A big focus today is in the compressed air systems.  Compressed air is considered to be the “forth” utility behind gas, water, and electricity.  It is a necessary system to run pneumatic systems, but it is the least efficient of the utilities.  For every $1.00 that is put into making compressed air, you only get roughly 5¢ of work from it.  So, it is very important to use this utility as efficiently as possible.

One of the largest problems affecting compressed air systems is leaks.  That quiet little hissing sound coming from the pipe lines is costing the company much money.  A university study was conducted to find the percentage of air leaks in a typical manufacturing plant.  In a poorly maintained system, they found on average that 30% of the compressor capacity is lost through air leaks.  In relation to the amount of electricity required to make compressed air, for every ten power plants producing electricity, there is one power plant producing electricity just for air leaks.  A majority of companies do not have a leak prevention program; so, many of these companies have poorly maintained systems. This creates a large amount of waste caused by simple air leaks.  To put a dollar value on it, a leak that you cannot physically hear can cost you as much as $130/year.  That is just for one inaudible leak in hundreds of feet of compressed air lines.  For the leaks that you can hear, you can tell by the chart below the amount of money that can be wasted by the size of the hole.  Unlike a hydraulic system, compressed air will not leave a tell-tale sign of a leak. You have to locate them by some other means.

**Note 1

Most leaks occur where you have threaded fittings, connections, hoses, and pneumatic components like valves, regulators, and drains.  The Optimization products from EXAIR are designed to help optimize your complete compressed air system.  The most effective way is to find and eliminate air leaks, and EXAIR has two products that can help do this.  The Ultrasonic Leak Detectors can find the air leaks, and the Digital Flowmeters can monitor your system for air leaks.  With both of these products included in a leak prevention program, you will be able to keep your compressed air system running optimally and reduce the wasted cost in air leaks and overusing the air compressor.

EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector:

When a leak occurs, it emits an ultrasonic noise caused by turbulence.  These ultrasonic noises can be at a frequency above that which is audible for human hearing.  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector can pick up these frequencies and make the leaks audible.  With three sensitivity ranges and LED display, you can find very minute leaks in your compressed air system.  It comes with two attachments; the parabola to locate leaks up to 20 feet away, and the tube attachment to define the exact location in the pipe line.  Once you find a leak, it can be marked for fixing.

EXAIR’s Digital Flowmeter w/ USB Data Logger

EXAIR Digital Flowmeter:

With the Digital Flowmeters, you can continuously monitor for waste.  Air leaks can occur at any time within any section of your pneumatic area.  You can do systematic checks by isolating sections with the Digital Flowmeter and watching for a flow reading.  Another way to monitor your system would be to compare the results over time.  With the Digital Flowmeters, we have a couple of options for recording the air flow data.  We have the USB Datalogger for setting certain time increments to record the air flows.  Once the information is recorded, you can connect the USB to your computer, and with the downloadable software, you can view the information and export it into an Excel spread sheet.  We also offer a wireless capability option with the Digital Flowmeters.  You can have multiple flow meters communicating through a gateway to monitor and record the flow information onto your computer system.  If you find that the flow starts trending upward for the same process, then you know that you have a leak.  It can also give you a preventive measure if your pneumatic system is starting to fail.

Compressed air leaks will rob you in performance, compressor life, and electrical cost.  It is important to have a leak prevention 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 and save yourself even more money.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

 

**Note 1: Chart was published by Compressed Air Challenge in April 1998 – Rev. 0