Top 8 Tips for Condensate Management

post date: 7/18/2022

If your company uses air compressors, condensate management is critical for several reasons. Contaminants like oxides, water, and small particles build up and can cause serious internal damage and premature wear. They can create clogging and rust. It is also essential that this contaminated condensate is disposed of properly. This is not just important for the environment, but it keeps your organization within EPA guidelines.
There is a lot to know about condensate management, but here are our top 8 tips:

1. Compressors need a consistent supply of dry air. Moisture is an enemy to the performance and lifespan of your compressors. You can improve that performance and your equipment's service life by ensuring it is in a dry-air environment.
2. Temperature significantly affects the amount of condensate produced. The warmer it is where your compressors are located, the more condensate will be created. If you have a choice, locate your compressors in a cool, dry area.
3. Make sure the pipe from the main header is sloped correctly. Properly pitching this pipe will allow condensate to collect at the low point better. This slope should be about 1" for every 10 feet of pipe.
4. Make sure you can test to ensure drains are working correctly. This can be accomplished in several ways. Installing a valve ahead of the condensation drains is one, and not using a solid pipe is another.
5. Make use of drip legs. Place drip legs at the low points of the air line and where the piping enters the building from outside. Drip legs will help collect condensation from air lines.
6. Do your research on drains. There are multiple styles of drains available to remove condensate from compressor systems, and they all have their issues. Do your homework determining the positives and negatives of manual drains, timer drains, float-operated drains, and electric-sensor drains.
7. Take the air from the appropriate place. To keep moisture out of the equipment using compressed air, take air from the top of air pipes.
8. Handle compressor condensate responsibly. The only way to handle compressor condensate in the past was to pay a waste management company expensive fees to dispose of it. Today, there are products that help you take care of it on-site.

At Clean Resources, our units have been helping keep compressor rooms EPA compliant since 1997. Our improved alumina silicate substrate media bed repels water and attracts and locks in lubricants and contaminates. It is so effective in binding the contaminants that the used media bed can be disposed of with normal waste disposal, and the remaining water is clean enough to go down the drain. To learn more about our oil-water separator products, contact Clean Resources today!