Tag: ROI

Efficiency: Air Tools That Pay for Themselves

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

In manufacturing, compressed air is often called the “fourth utility.” Like electricity, water, and gas, it’s essential for keeping production running. But unlike the others, compressed air is frequently misapplied, or wasted, making it one of the most expensive utilities in a plant.

The good news is that the right tools can dramatically improve compressed air efficiency. In many cases, they pay for themselves quickly through energy savings, reduced downtime, and improved productivity. That’s where EXAIR engineered compressed air products come in.

Let’s look at a few examples of air-powered tools that deliver measurable ROI.

Air Amplifiers: Move More Air with Less Energy

Moving large volumes of air is a common requirement in industrial environments—whether for ventilation, drying, cooling, or removing fumes. Traditional compressed air nozzles can consume a lot of air while producing relatively small airflow.

Model 120024 4″ Super Air Amplifiers are commonly used to exhaust welding smoke and fumes.

Air Amplifiers use the Coandă effect to entrain large volumes of surrounding air, dramatically increasing airflow while minimizing compressed air consumption. In many cases, they can increase airflow up to 25 times the supplied compressed air.

This means you can:

  • Move more air with less compressed air input
  • Reduce overall compressor load
  • Lower energy costs

For applications like ventilating enclosures, exhausting smoke or fumes, and cooling parts, air amplifiers can often replace inefficient open pipe blow offs or multiple air jets.

Super Air Knives: Efficient Blowoff for Drying and Cleaning

Blow off is one of the most common—and most wasteful—uses of compressed air. Many facilities still rely on drilled pipe or open copper tubing, which wastes enormous amounts of compressed air while generating excessive noise.

Super Air Knives create a laminar sheet of high-velocity air across the entire length of the knife. This provides powerful and uniform blow off while using significantly less compressed air than traditional methods.

Benefits include:

  • Reduced compressed air consumption
  • Uniform drying and cleaning
  • Low noise operation
  • No moving parts and minimal maintenance

Applications range from removing water after washing processes to blowing debris off conveyors, sheets, or molded parts.

Efficiency in compressed air usage isn’t just about saving energy—it’s about improving productivity, reliability, and process performance. When you replace inefficient air practices with engineered solutions, you often gain benefits across the entire operation.

If you’re looking to reduce compressed air waste or improve a blow off, cooling, or static problem, the right air tool may be a small investment with a big return.

And in many cases, it’s an investment that pays for itself.

Jordan Shouse, CCASS

Application Engineer / Sales Operations Engineer

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Identify Real Compressed Air Savings Through EXAIR’s Efficiency Lab

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

Many customers may not have the means to test the air consumption of their blowoff solutions. With compressed air being the most expensive utility in a manufacturing facility, it’s important to identify places where you can save money on your overall operating costs. EXAIR manufactures a wide variety of products intended to help you reduce your compressed air usage. If you’re not able to accurately measure the consumption in your own shop, we invite you to send the products to EXAIR for testing. With EXAIR’s Award-Winning Efficiency Lab, just simply box them up and send them to our warehouse in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Once we receive it, our engineers will complete some in-depth testing to determine the compressed air consumption, sound level, and force that your current solution provides. With this information, we’ll be able to compare it to an EXAIR Engineered Solution. This way, we ensure that you receive the best, safest solution possible also capable of saving money through reduced air consumption and improved efficiency.  We’ll send you back a comprehensive report that’ll help you to make the best decision for your company.

I’ve recently been working with a customer that sent in one of the nozzles they’re using across all their CNC machines. They wanted us to test it out and see if we’d be able to offer them something that could reduce their overall compressed air usage. The nozzle was one of the cheap plastic varieties and was attached to a commonly used modular hose. This type of modular hose is not designed for operating under high pressures. These hoses are more suitable for liquid coolant or air that is at or below atmospheric pressure.

After testing, we found that at 80 psig the nozzle consumed 3.85 SCFM and produced a force of 1.92 oz. We also noticed that after 60 psig, the nozzle began to leak due to a poor seal where the nozzle met the brass hex. The EXAIR nozzle most suitable to replace this was the 1108SS. At just 2.5 SCFM at 80 psig, replacing the plastic nozzle with an engineered solution saves them 35% of their overall consumption for this blowoff. With close to 1000 of these nozzles in operation, the air savings can add up quickly!!

In addition to increasing efficiency, replacing these nozzles also greatly increases overall worker safety. The sound level is reduced from 73 dBA to just 58 dBA and EXAIR’s nozzles also adhere to OSHA 1910.242(b). The plastic nozzles could be dead-ended, posing a hazard that can result in costly fines. These fines are assessed per infraction, so having multiple non-compliant nozzles can easily get very expensive if you’re subject to an unannounced visit by an OSHA inspector.

If you think you may have an opportunity to improve upon your existing blowoff methods, give us a call. We’ll be happy to take a closer look and have you send the product back to EXAIR for a quick trial in our Efficiency Lab. You’ll be glad you did!

Tyler Daniel, CCASS

Application Engineer

E-mal: TylerDaniel@exair.com

Twitter: @EXAIR_TD

Calculating Return On Investment with EXAIR Products

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Just because something works, doesn’t necessarily mean it works as well as it could. We talk to folks every day who have compressed air-operated devices that work OK, but they’re loud. Or they’re not compliant with safety regulations. Or they use too much compressed air. EXAIR has solutions to all of those issues, but it’s that last one that I want to spend some time on today.

A caller was using a drilled pipe to clean blow off a conveyor – it was 36″ wide, so the pipe had (72) 1/16″ diameter holes drilled, one every 1/2″ along the pipe length. It used compressed air at a rate of 261 SCFM with a supply pressure of 60psig. We can use a US Department of Energy thumb rule which states that it costs $0.25 to generate 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet of compressed air to determine the annual operating cost of this drilled pipe, which they operate eight hours a day, 250 days a year:

261 SCFM X 60 min/hr X 8 hr/day X 250 days/yr X $0.25/1,000 SCF = $7,830.00 annual cost

Here’s a typical drilled pipe that we tested for a customer in our Efficiency Lab.

A 36″ Super Air Knife only uses 82.8 SCFM @60psig. Using the same math:

82.8 SCFM X 60 min/hr X 8 hr/day X 250 days/yr X $0.25/1,000 SCF = $2,484.00 annual cost

Super Air Knife drying fruits and vegetables

Now we have the data to use our Return on Investment calculation:

Gain from investment: $7,830.00 (drilled pipe cost) – $2,484.00 (Super Air Knife cost) = $5,346.00

Cost of investment: 2024 price for a Model 110036 36″ Aluminum Super Air Knife = $938.00

A 470% annual return is spectacular by any measure. To further put that in perspective, let’s calculate how long it takes for the Air Knife to pay for itself. The 36″ Aluminum Super Air Knife costs $938.00 (2024 price), and the annual savings in compressed air cost are $5,346.00:

$938.00 (spent) ÷ $5,346.00 (saved/yr) = 0.18 years

Since we used 250 days – 5 days/week for 52 weeks, less 10 days for holidays, maintenance, etc.:

0.18 years X 250 days/year = 45 days

So, in about a month and a half, they saved as much as they spent on the Super Air Knife. We’ve worked with customers who have seen their return on investment in just a few days, or as long as a year or so. Regardless, if it costs less to operate, you’re still moving in the right direction. If you’d like to find out how much you can save – and how fast you can pay off your investment – you can do the math above, or you can use our Online Calculators, or you can give me a call.

Oh, and if you don’t have the air consumption data on what you’re using now, we can measure that for you in our Efficiency Lab. It’s a free service we offer, without obligation to purchase anything, for anyone who wants to know the performance level of their air-operated blow off devices.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Free ROI Evaluation and Report with EXAIR’s Efficiency Lab Service

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

EXAIR’s Free Efficiency Lab

With any purchase process, it’s important to consider the return on your investment. This becomes even more important when trying to convince management that the upgrades you’re looking to make on the floor are worth the investment. At EXAIR, we offer a free service that allows you to send in your existing compressed air blowing devices to be compared with our recommended EXAIR manufactured equivalent.

Many facilities may not have the means to test the air consumption of their blowoff solutions. With compressed air being the most expensive utility in a manufacturing facility, it’s important to identify places where you can save money on your overall operating costs. EXAIR manufacturers a wide variety of products intended to help you reduce your compressed air usage. If you’re not able to accurately measure the consumption in your own shop, we invite you to send the products to EXAIR for testing.

All you have to do is contact an EXAIR Application Engineer and ship them straight to our warehouse in Cincinnati, Ohio. Once we receive it, our engineers will complete some in-depth testing to determine the compressed air consumption, sound level, and force that your current solution provides. With this information, we’ll be able to compare it to an EXAIR Engineered solution. This way, we ensure that you receive the best, safest solution possible. All while saving money through reduced air consumption and improved efficiency.  We’ll send you back a comprehensive report that’ll help you to make the best decision for your company.

This service is something that we offer to our customers completely free of charge. This way, you can be assured that by selecting a new solution from EXAIR, you’re making a well-informed decision. Oftentimes, it’s not known just how much some of these products cost to operate. Contrary to popular misconception, compressed air is certainly not free. In fact, it is rather costly, as a 4th utility in an industrial plant.

Check out the Efficiency Lab for yourself here in this video:

If you think there are applications in your facility that you suspect are consuming too much air, we’re here to help. Reach out to an Application Engineer to organize your own, free Efficiency Lab evaluation of your equipment. Allow us to show you the difference!

Tyler Daniel, CCASS

Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@EXAIR.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD