Insulating Compressed Air Lines
Insulating Compressed Air Lines
(OP)
We are having a problem with water in our compressed air lines. We currently have a refrigerated dryer in building "A" to extract moisture from the air exiting the compressor wich works great. The problem is in building "B" where our air lines run from inside building "A" to the outside to inside building "B". The air line is not insulated outside. Can simply applying insulation to the air line outside solve this problem? Of note the company president is not keen on buying another compressed air dryer in these tight economic times, that was my first idea.





RE: Insulating Compressed Air Lines
There is no way for us to answer this question since we don't know how close to dewpoint the air is, nor what the ambient temperature outside is, nor the length of the pipe.
You need to keep the air at a temperature above it's dewpoint. If the insulation will do this, it will work but if not ...
RE: Insulating Compressed Air Lines
Generally speaking, you want to get rid of the water in your lines, so the fact that water is dropping out is not necessarily a bad thing, you just need to get rid of it, now that it's condensed.
RE: Insulating Compressed Air Lines
You can probably prevent all condensation between buildings by adding both heat trace and insulation. The math that rneil proposes can help you decide if you need the heat trace for steady flow or not, but service-air tends to be start/stop and during the "stop" part of the cycle the air will cool even with insulation. A little bit of heat trace can make a huge difference.
David
RE: Insulating Compressed Air Lines
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