If you’re a car mechanic you get really good at it by fixing cars day after day after day. I know a lot of you are wrench turning experts, but there are important codes, regulations, and best practices that you probably won’t know. Which one you choose will depend on many different variables, and we’ll go into that on a later post.

Galvanized steel, copper, stainless steel, and aluminum are all good choices.

The corrosion on the inside is really bad for your compressed air quality and your pressure drop. However, black iron will corrode inside and out.

You can read more about it here.īlack iron used to be the go-to pipe for compressed air installations (that and copper).

Avoid PVC it’s illegal and not meant for compressed air.

A loop also makes it easier to expand later. You won’t have a lack of pressure at the end of the line. Sometimes you can’t avoid elbows because there are things in the way, but do your best to minimize them.Ī loop will make it so the pressure is spread evenly throughout the system. Make sure you include the equivalent length of fittings in your calculations.Īn elbow counts as several feet (or possibly several hundred feet) of pipe when looking at pressure drop calculations. You can also look on-line for numerous pressure drop calculators. We have charts and excel spreadsheets that calculate pressure drop in piping. The longer you go, the bigger the pipe will need to be.

Make sure you have the proper pipe size for the CFM, pressure, and length of your pipe system.

The key is to minimize it as much as possible. Frictionless pipe has not been invented yet, so pressure drop will always be present. Pressure drop is caused by the friction between your pipe and the air that runs through it.

Every pipe system will have some pressure drop. You want your pipe system to have a minimal pressure drop.Īs we discussed earlier, every 2% increase of psi over 100 psi increases your energy costs by 1%.We have mentioned that several times on this blog, so there’s no need to go over that again.

Before you choose an option, you need to know what you want from your piping. You have many different options on the type of piping, and how you pipe your compressed air system. However, just like a heart can fail because of clogged arteries, a compressor can fail because of improper piping. Most customers focus on the compressor and consider the piping as a secondary concern. Your air compressor is the heart of your air system.

Air compressor can