By now hopefully, you’ve carried out your spring air compressor audit, including the priority areas we suggested in our March news update.
However, as the summer progresses, it’s important to stay vigilant on how well your air compressors are performing, and whether they need any extra attention.
These are five ways to keep air compressors working in summer, which might mean you can get by with just a fluid change or some air compressor spare parts, rather than facing a completely broken system on a hot day.
Check your condensate drains
It might feel like summer is a dry month, but the relative humidity in the air can be much higher – and that can mean more condensates coming out of your drains.
Keep them checked and flowing freely and you’ll avoid a harmful condensate build-up inside your compressor.
Test the dew point of refrigeration dryers
Another condensate-related issue, this time affecting refrigeration air dryers, which can have a much different dew point on hot days.
Just make sure that your refrigeration air dryer is not suffering from a condensate problem and, again, you’ll keep it working efficiently for longer.
Clean air filters more often
The dry and dusty conditions can mean many more particulate contaminants sucked into your air filters.
On the one hand, this is the reason why air filters exist, but it is still important to clean them regularly and to replace compressed air filters once they are worn out or impossible to clean properly.
Keep ventilation panels clear
It’s easy to lean something up against an air compressor and forget it’s there – but the more obstacles you have around your compressor’s vents, the less effective its internal ventilation will be.
Check around your air compressors and move anything out of the way so even if the ambient air isn’t very cool, plenty of it can get into your equipment.
Use the right oil
Finally, as always when temperatures change, it’s crucial to check that you have used the right oil in your air compressor – at higher temperatures, the viscosity can be affected, and oil can have a shorter life span in general.
Like your air filters, you should clean oil filters more regularly in summer, as this can help your compressor to run more coolly, even on the hottest days of a heat wave.
