I am plumbing my garage after the move to the new house and because of the lack of space on the walls it would be a pain to plumb in the ¾ inch copper that I had in my old house. I moved to Florida and even though I have a 3 car garage it’s very small and most of the houses down here have no space in the house especially basements like I had up north so they hang everything in the garage. So I bought this kit below at the local Northern Tool and it looks cool and easy. I got a great deal on it (50% off).
My question is I am running my new 60 gallon Quincy compressor and will have 2 drops but is 1/2 inch going to be enough or should I have stuck with the 3/4 inch. The ¾ inch wasn’t half off and was $200.00 which I didn’t want to spend.
Will I really notice a difference between the ½ & ¾ inch?
Like the others have said 1/2 should work fine. But I'd be more concerned with humidity and do everything I could possibly do to prevent condensate and control it because you are going to get plenty even with an inline drier.
Getting the compressed air to cool in the plumbed line before the drier has worked for me. I have used schedule 80 PVC, cheap and rated at 690psi.
So volume in the line is your friend in the main lines. I know you said you have limited wall space but try and get creative and see what you can do.
I also didn't notice that the drops have any short drops w/bleeders under the couplers. Try to get this feature included.
I ran a y in my shop , 120 X 40 but only have air and multiple plugs, machinery in one half, the other half is storage. I now usually only work alone but when one of my boys is working there too, 1/2 for each branch is enough. It is 3/4 out of the tank in the corner then 1/2 each way. DO NOT USE PVC . When it ages it will get brittle and can fracture or explode and the shrapnel will not show up in X rays. I did use pvc at my old shop UNDER GROUND with copper pipe coming up to have an air outlet at the front corner of the house. I had to replumb the Air system at a factory, The first install was all 1/2 pipe . when 4 or 5 air tools were running they were not getting consistant torque readings. I redid it with 2 in copper main line with 1/2 drops, and 1 inch and 3/4 for short branch runs. and 1/2 drops.
1/2 inch will be fine in your garage. My garage is 24x40 and i ran 1/2 k copper and have no problems. You can flow 375 CFM through a 1/2 orfice and im guessing your running maybe 18 cfm at 90 PSI with your Quincy. If you look at the Milton type M quick connects with a 3/8 fpt the opening in them is only maybe 3/16. I dont think you would see a noticable difference if you went with 3/4 pipe. Just my 2 bits worth of information.
It wasnt too bad......i did it about 10 years ago and i think i had about $200 in everything and i put 8 drops in the system. I think copper has went up about 800 percent since i did it, I certainly wouldnt do it in K copper today unless i took out a home equity load to do it! LOL
I had a bad experience with PVC in the house downstairs this winter, pressured line that had a sudden jarring due to threads on a plastic filter head housing sheering off right in front of me and the PVC snapped like a pretzel in three spots on the manifold I had made years ago out of 3/4 diameter. Had it been air in the lines, oh that would be bad news as water is fairly non compressible. I went back to 3/4 copper ... tried and true.
Of course that isn't an air line but have thought of doing some plumbing in the stand alone shop but haven't yet. I would be tempted to go with L series copper and 3/4 inch simply to keep the velocity of the air slower, more surface area on the pipe to cool the air and have a riser off the compressor that goes up the wall to the roof and then back down before entering a water separator filter and regulator after that .. one idea anyway. As its said, a filter just after the compressor allows hot compressed air to pass right on through and carry most of the moisture with it rather then cooling it first to condense it, then having a combination of a water trap first, and filter etc after that. Florida, oh I can only imagine the moisture issues with 200 % humidity ... or it sure felt like it to me even in the winter once evening came !.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Hot Rod Forum
2.2M posts
175.7K members
Since 2001
A forum community dedicated to hot rod owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about restoration, builds, performance, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!