Tag: leaks

Why Engineered Air Nozzles Outperform Open Pipes (And Cut Air Use by Up to 70%)

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Compressed air is one of the most expensive utilities in any manufacturing facility—yet it’s often treated as “free.” One of the biggest contributors to wasted compressed air is the continued use of open pipes, drilled pipes, or homemade blowoffs for cleaning, drying, and cooling applications.

While these methods may seem simple and inexpensive, they are inefficient, unsafe, noisy, and costly over time. EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzles are designed to solve these exact problems. Often reducing compressed air consumption by up to 70% while improving performance.

Open pipes release compressed air directly to atmosphere with no control, no amplification, and no optimization. This creates several major issues:

Excessive Air Consumption

An open 1/4″ pipe at 80 PSIG can consume 25+ SCFM continuously. Multiply that across shifts, days, and multiple stations, and the cost quickly adds up.

Poor Performance

Open pipes create turbulent airflow that dissipates rapidly, requiring higher pressure and more air to achieve acceptable results.

High Noise Levels

Uncontrolled air release produces noise levels that can exceed OSHA limits, creating safety and compliance concerns.

Safety Risks

Open pipes can generate dangerous dead-end pressures and flying debris, posing serious injury risks to operators. Creating real situations where

What Makes EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzles Different?

EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzles are precision-designed to maximize force while minimizing air consumption. Instead of wasting compressed air, they use advanced airflow geometry to do more with less.

Air Amplification

EXAIR nozzles use the Coandă effect to entrain surrounding ambient air. For every unit of compressed air used, multiple units of free air are pulled into the flow—creating higher output force without increased air usage.

Optimized Flow Patterns

Rather than chaotic turbulence, engineered nozzles produce laminar, focused airflow that delivers better cleaning, drying, and cooling results at lower pressure.

Significant Air Savings

It’s common to see 30–70% reductions in air consumption when replacing open pipes with EXAIR air nozzles—often with improved performance.

Eleminate Safety Risks

Air nozzles and jets are designed to operate well above 30 PSIG while creating dead end pressures well below the OSHA limits. Giving you better performance safley.

EXAIR Model 1100 Super Air Nozzle Replaces Open Copper Pipe Blow Off

Replacing open pipes with EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzles is one of the simplest and most cost-effective improvements you can make to a compressed air system.

If you’re serious about:

  • Reducing energy costs
  • Improving safety
  • Lowering noise levels
  • Getting more from your compressed air

…it’s time to stop blowing money into the air.

EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzles prove that better design beats brute force—every time.

Jordan Shouse, CCASS

Application Engineer / Sales Operations Engineer

Send me an email
Find us on the Web 

Pictionary Is Not What Should Come To Mind When Looking At Facility Drawings

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Does anyone else remember the episode of Friends where they were playing Pictionary and no one could guess what Monica was drawing? No, well, honestly, that’s the scene I thought of when looking at some system drawings for compressed air setups. If you need a refresher, see the YouTube clip below.

1 – Pictionary | Friends

When trying to ensure you have a sustainable compressed air system within a facility, it is critical to ensure the layout is documented. This can be a very tedious task on existing systems that have been in place for years without any documentation, it doesn’t mean the idea should be lost. This can save considerable time and effort when looking at issues and or expansion of existing usage. The other point this can help greatly with is documenting and fixing leaks on your way to an optimized compressed air system.

Along that same line, I’ve seen numerous reports over the past decade that all point to improperly maintained filter drains in compressed air systems that account for a large percentage of the 30% total system leakage that facilities can see. So I want to educate on the different types of P&ID symbols used for regulators and filters on compressed air systems so that our readers can better their preventive maintenance plans and install checkpoints at each one of these on a routine schedule.

If you are evaluating your compressed air system and trying to come up with a preventive maintenance plan, then each one of these symbols should be on a preventative check routine in order to ensure they are not a contributing factor to compressed air waste within your facility.

If you want to discuss other ways to optimize your compressed air system or other P&ID symbols used for pneumatic system components, reach out to any of the team here, and we will help you with your current situation.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

1 – Friends, Pictionary|Friends – Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP2bX0ctoFs – published – 10/1/2023

Turn Your One Bedroom Fixer-upper Compressor Room into a Pent House Suite!

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

First lets paint a picture, by starting with my first 400 Sq.Ft Bachelor pad in Holland Michigan. It was my first time after college living on my own and paying my own room and board! So I did what every fresh out of college 25-year-old male does, I scoured the internet for the cheapest possible living arrangements! And that was a one bedroom(ish) apartment that was one of three rentals they made from a small 1,500 Sq.ft house! It was rough, I could smell the smoke from my neighbors. I could tell what they were having for dinner by the smell and I could hear EVERYTHING! Needless to say the conditions were not the best to relax and properly live my life. (Just had a little PTSD thinking about it)

Yeah, that was a problem too……… (Longest 6 months of my Life)

I said all of that just to say the Environment Matters! For me, it was my living conditions and I learned that the hard way! But for your Air compressor it’s the compressor room in which it sits! While we don’t sell compressors, pretty much all of our products use compressed air so helping you generate and use it in the best and most efficient way is important to us!

Some of the mistakes that are commonly made in the compressor room are by design, and others are operational. Let’s cover a few;

  • Poor ventilation: Air compressors get hot. They’ve got a lot of moving parts, and many of those parts are moving under a great amount of force (pressure is literally defined as force per unit area), and at a high rate of speed. Add in the heat of compression (it takes energy to compress air, and that energy has to go somewhere, (something another colleague, John Ball, explains here). Add in all that friction, and you come up with a TREMENDOUS amount of heat. An industry rule of thumb, in fact, states that over 2500 Btu/hr of heat is generated, PER HORSEPOWER, by a typical industrial air compressor. If the compressor room isn’t big enough, you’ll need an exhaust fan capable of removing all that heat. Many compressors also have optional heat recovery systems as well.
  • Lack of filtration: Take a good, full breath in through your nose, right now. Did you smell anything unpleasant or irritating? I hope not…clean air is a “must” for your lungs (and the rest of your body), and the same is true for your air compressor (and the rest of your compressed air system). Keeping up with the maintenance on the intake filter is literally “starting where it all begins”…from the 1st paragraph.
  • Not removing moisture: Water & water vapor will have an adverse effect on many components of your compressed air system: it’ll cause rust in iron pipes, damage the seals in air cylinders, motors, tools, etc., and if you use it for blow off or conveying, it’ll contaminate your product.
  • Leaks: The compressor room is loud, so leaks are going to be pretty big before you can hear them. And to add insult to injury, the vibration of a running compressor makes the compressor room a prime location for them to occur. Even one small leak that you couldn’t hear in a quieter area will cost you over $100 over the course of the year, and maybe only take minutes to fix. Good news is, even if you can’t hear them, they ALL make an ultrasonic signature, and we’ve got something for that.
  • Ignoring maintenance. If you don’t schedule planned maintenance, your equipment will schedule “corrective” maintenance for you…oftentimes at greater expense, and with no regard to your schedule.
    • Moving metal parts that make metal-to-metal contact (or that have very tight spacing tolerances) HAVE to be lubricated properly. If you run low on oil, or let it get dirty or emulsified, severe damage will follow. Keeping an eye on the oil level, and changing it (and the filter) at the manufacturer’s recommended intervals, is critical.
    • Emulsified or otherwise contaminated oil can damage seals, gaskets, and o-rings. That’s obviously a big problem for the compressor, and when it carries over into the header, it’s a big problem for pneumatic cylinders & tools as well. Periodic sampling & analysis of your oil can provide timely notice of issues that can be corrected before they become catastrophic failures.
    • Depending on the type of compressor, and its drive system, the manufacturer’s maintenance recommendations may also include:
      • Checking coupling or belt alignment of the drive.
      • Checking bolts for loosening due to vibration (a “necessary evil”, especially with reciprocating compressors).
      • Adjusting the pistons to maintain valve plate clearance.
      • Tightening or replacing the mounts & vibration pads.

Don’t put your compressor in a room that smells like a cigarette butt covered in cooking grease that is infested with cockroaches. Set it up in the pent house, and it will reward you with dependable and efficient operation for a very long time! If you’d like to find out more about how EXAIR Corporation can help you get the most out of your compressed air system, give me a call.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
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Twitter: @EXAIR_JS

German Cockroach image courtesy of Sarah Camp , Creative Commons License.

Intelligent Compressed Air®: Common Compressor Room Mistakes, And How To Avoid Them

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

While we don’t sell, install, or service air compressors, EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products run on compressed air, so helping you get the most out of your compressed air system is important to us. Today, we’re starting where it all begins: the compressor room.

Some of the mistakes that are commonly made in the compressor room are by design, and others are operational. My colleague Tyler Daniel wrote a great blog on design considerations recently, so I’m going to focus on the operational aspects, which include maintenance…and maybe some minor design stuff:

  • Poor ventilation: Air compressors get hot. They’ve got a lot of moving parts, and many of those parts are moving under a great amount of force (pressure is literally defined as force per unit area), and at a high rate of speed. Add in the heat of compression (it takes energy to compress air, and that energy has to go somewhere, something another colleague, John Ball, explains here), to all that friction and you come up with a TREMENDOUS amount of heat. An industry thumbrule, in fact, states that over 2500 Btu/hr of heat is generated, PER HORSEPOWER, by a typical industrial air compressor. If the compressor room isn’t big enough, you’ll need an exhaust fan capable of removing all that heat.
  • Lack of filtration: Take a good, full breath in through your nose, right now. Did you smell anything unpleasant or irritating? I hope not…clean air is a “must” for your lungs (and the rest of your body), and the same is true for your air compressor (and the rest of your compressed air system). Keeping up with the maintenance on the intake filter is literally “starting where it all begins”…from the 1st paragraph.
  • Not removing moisture: Water & water vapor will have an adverse effect on many components of your compressed air system: it’ll cause rust in iron pipes, damage the seals in air cylinders, motors, tools, etc., and if you use it for blow off or conveying, it’ll contaminate your product. We’ve written…again and again…about the importance of dryers, and which type might be best for you.
  • Tolerating leaks: The compressor room is loud, so leaks are going to be pretty big before you can hear them. And to add insult to injury, the vibration of a running compressor makes the compressor room a prime location for them to occur. Even one small leak that you couldn’t hear in a quieter area will cost you over $100 over the course of the year, and maybe only take minutes to fix. Good news is, even if you can’t hear them, they ALL make an ultrasonic signature, and we’ve got something for that.
EXAIR Model 9061 Ultrasonic Leak Detector “finds them all, big or small!”
  • Ignoring maintenance. If you don’t schedule planned maintenance, your equipment will schedule corrective maintenance for you…oftentimes at greater expense, and with no regard to your schedule.
    • Moving metal parts that make metal-to-metal contact (or that have very tight spacing tolerances) HAVE to be lubricated properly. If you run low on oil, or let it get dirty or emulsified, severe damage will follow. Keeping an eye on the oil level, and changing it (and the filter) at the manufacturer’s recommended intervals, is critical.
    • Emulsified or otherwise contaminated oil can damage seals, gaskets, and o-rings. That’s obviously a big problem for the compressor, and when it carries over into the header, it’s a big problem for pneumatic cylinders & tools as well. Periodic sampling & analysis of your oil can provide timely notice of issues that can be corrected before they become catastrophic failures.
    • Depending on the type of compressor, and its drive system, the manufacturer’s maintenance recommendations may also include:
      • Checking coupling or belt alignment of the drive.
      • Checking bolts for loosening due to vibration (a “necessary evil”, especially with reciprocating compressors).
      • Adjusting the pistons to maintain valve plate clearance.
      • Tightening or replacing the mounts & vibration pads.

If you’d like to find out more about how EXAIR Corporation can help you get the most out of your compressed air system, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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Image courtesy of PEO ACWA Some rights reserved Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)