We love to talk about how our intelligent compressed air products can save you money. This has been the subject of many blogs, emails and phone calls; primarily focusing on how our products will reduce your overall air consumption. This leads to lower energy costs, which over time will save you thousands of dollars. Another way you can save money is through rebate programs.
Many electrical companies offer rebates for efficient products and programs that help reduce energy consumption. The NC Clean Energy Technology Center has created a website that consolidates this information for you on their website: www.dsireusa.org. “DSIRE is the most comprehensive source of information on incentives and policies that support renewable and energy efficiency in the United States”. Since EXAIR’s products fall into this category, rebates can be applied to the use of our products. If there is a rebate available, you will find it on this site.
It’s easy to find what rebates are available for you by selecting your state from the map on DSIRE, and then filtering down to Technology > Energy Efficiency > Industrial Equipment > Compressed air. As an example, in Michigan there is currently a rebate from Energy Smart for using Engineered Nozzles.
Once you’ve found your rebate, give us a call! We can help you determine which of our products will allow you to take advantage of it, whether it’s one of our engineered nozzles like the above example, or any of our other intelligent compressed air products.
Cheap to buy; expensive to operate. And it’s loud, to boot.
Precision VariBlast Safety Air Gun offers strong blow off while reducing air use & noise levels.
You can go to almost any hardware store and buy a $10-$20 air blow gun. It’s going to be loud when you pull the trigger, it’s not likely to be compliant with OSHA standards. AND, it’s going to cost more to operate than an engineered product like an EXAIR Safety Air Gun. I actually performed an Efficiency Lab test on such a blow gun recently. First thing I did was look for the manufacturer’s published data on air usage – there was none. Testing with our calibrated rotameter showed that it used 13.5 SCFM @80psig. This same customer had purchased a Model 1809SS-CS VariBlast Precision Safety Air Gun with our Pico Super Air Nozzle installed (and a Chip Shield, which made me really respect their safety game), which uses only 4.9 SCFM @80psig.
The VariBlast Precision Safety Air Guns cost them $136.00 each (2023 pricing). We used a US Department of Energy thumb rule which states that compressed air costs an average of $0.25 per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet, and calculated that the blow guns they were using cost $158 annually, each, to operate 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, with 3 hours of ‘trigger time’ a day:
13.5 SCFM X 60 min/hr X 3 hrs/day X 5 days/week X 52 weeks/year X $0.25/1,000 SCF = $157.95
Using the same math and substituting the 1809SS-CS’ air use, we see they only cost $58 per year to run:
4.9 SCFM X 60 min/hr X 3 hrs/day X 5 days/week X 52 weeks/year X $0.25/1,000 SCF = $57.33
And, again, since there are 14 of them, the customer is realizing an annual operating cost saving of over $800.00 a year!
At EXAIR, we’re in the business of making sure you get the most out of our products, and your compressed air system. If you’d like to find out what that might mean for you, give me a call.
Russ Bowman, CCASS
Application Engineer Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
Here at EXAIR we are very proud of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products. We can spend a lot of time talking about our favorites (mine is the Vortex Tube). We have written many blogs about the advantages – no moving parts, little to no maintenance, meeting or exceeding OSHA safety standards for noise or dead end pressure. One thing we don’t talk as much about are the accessories that go along with and complement our products.
From left to right; a few value added accessories for your Vortex Tube: Hot Muffler, Cold Muffler, Automatic Drain Filter Separator, Oil Removal Filter, and Solenoid Valve/Thermostat Kit.
Some of the most commonly used accessories are our compressed air Filters and Regulators. We would recommend the use of these with all of our products (or even with products that aren’t even ours). The Filter Separator will remove water, dirt and rust from your compressed air system. The 5-micron filter element will keep contaminants from plugging or damaging your compressed air product. An Oil Removal Filter (always placed downstream of our Filter Separator) will provide even finer filtration by removing oil and solid particulate using a 0.03-micron element. Our Pressure Regulators will enable you to select the operating pressure. At EXAIR we always recommend operating at the minimum pressure required to get the job done. Pressure Regulators allow you to do that, saving on unnecessary air consumption and allowing for dialing in the performance of EXAIR products within an application.
For some of our products, we have accessories made specifically for them. For use with our Line Vacs we have Line Vac Hose. We have Thermostats and Solenoid Valves to pair with our Cabinet Coolers, and for our Vortex Tubes we would recommend our Mufflers. For our Air Knives we have several great offerings: If you need an easy and reliable way to mount your Air Knife, then our Universal Air Knife Mounting System is what you are looking for. If your application requires something longer than our stock Knives, or perhaps you need to control certain sections of the air flow independently, then our Coupling Bracket Kits are the perfect fit. If you want to make plumbing your Air Knife easy, take a look at our Air Knife Plumbing Kits. They can be used for all Air Knives longer than 24″.
If you need to plumb many of our other Intelligent Compressed Air Products, then we have a selection of compressed air hoses and fittings that will make life easier. Our Coiled Hoses pair well with our Safety Air Guns, allowing you to move more freely while operating. Our Compressed Air Hoses are commonly used with our Industrial Housekeeping products to give the drum and dolly the reach needed.
Whatever your application’s need is, or the product you’re looking for, we certainly have a range of complimentary accessory products that will make installation and adjustment easier. If you have any questions about these, or any other EXAIR product, feel free to contact us.
There’s an old saying that goes “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” Best case, this means it may not be necessary to repair, refurbish, or replace something just because there’s a newer offering on the market. Worst case, it’s used to justify continued use of something when the aforementioned repair, refurbishment, or replacement will result in quantifiable benefits. THAT makes THIS quote all the more applicable:
“The most dangerous phrase in the English language is: We’ve always done it this way. It raises the question, ‘Are we doing this because we always have, or because it’s the right thing to do?’” -Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral USN & computer pioneer
If you consider “not spending any more than you have to on compressed air” to be “the right thing to do”, then this blog’s for you. Read on, and we’ll calculate not only how much you might save by using engineered compressed air products in place of what you’re using now, but how soon that amount you save will equal how much you spent on those products…that’s called Return On Investment, or ROI. Let’s work through an example:
A popular air gun fitted with a cross-drilled nozzle for OSHA compliance uses 34 SCFM @80psig. These are commonly replaced by our Model 1210 Soft Grip Safety Air Guns fitted with our Super Air Nozzles, which consume only 14 SCFM @80psig. It’s not likely that the trigger on an Air Gun used for blowing, cleaning, drying, etc., will be pulled continuously, but we can assume that two hours of “trigger time” per day (for an eight-hour shift) is reasonable. Here’s how to calculate annual savings:
(34-14 SCFM) X 60 min/hr X 2 hrs/day X 5 days/wk X 50 wks/yr=600,000 Standard Cubic Feet saved
Model 1210 Soft Grip Safety Air is fitted with an EXAIR Super Air Nozzle. We can also supply it with a Rigid Extension and Chip Shield (right).
Now, we need to determine the cost of your compressed air. The calculation for that, per the U.S. Department of Energy, is as follows:
Cost ($) = {bhp X 0.746 X # of operating hours X $/kWh X % time X % full load bhp}/motor efficiency
Where: bhp = motor full load horsepower 0.746 = conversion from hp to kW % time = percentage of run time at this operating level % full load bhp = brake horsepower as percentage of full load bhp at this operating level Motor efficiency = motor efficiency at this operating level
For simplicity, you could also get a fairly accurate answer by applying an “industry standard” thumb rule which states that a typical industrial air compressor generates ~4 SCFM per HP. If you know your electricity cost ($/kWh), you can calculate the cost of compressed air generation as follows. To keep most of the digits to the left of the decimal point, it’s commonly calculated as $ per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet:
$/kWh X 0.746 hp/kW ÷ 4 hp/SCFM ÷ 60 min/hr X 1,000 = $ per 1,000 SCF
For EXTRA simplicity, you can use ANOTHER thumb rule, also endorsed by the Department of Energy, which states that compressed air costs about $0.25 per 1,000 SCF. It uses the above formula, and a typical estimate for electricity cost of $0.08 per kWh which my buddy Brian Farno did the math and provided a detailed explanation on that one here. So:
600,000 SCF X $0.25/1,000 SCF = $150.00 saved by switching to the EXAIR Safety Air Gun
Given the cost (current 2023 List Price) of $115.00 for the Model 1210 Soft Grip Safety Air Gun, we can calculate Return On Investment as a function of time…how long it takes before you end up saving the amount you spent:
$115.00 saved ÷ $150.00 spent X 12 months in a year = 9.2 months
At EXAIR (if you hadn’t figured it out already), we LOVE to do the math, but if you don’t (no judgment), we’ve got calculators on our website for that. Just fill in a few blanks, and get your answer. If there’s anything I can help with, though, give me a call.
Russ Bowman, CCASS
Application Engineer Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
