What is Preventative Maintenance?
Following a regular compressor maintenance routine is an essential investment that will help you protect operations while minimizing costs. In many industries air quality is a legal requirement and the benefits of maintenance go far beyond equipment reliability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Preventative maintenance keeps your industrial air compressors in top condition and boosts your bottom line by avoiding costly repairs and downtime.
Air Compressor Preventative Maintenance
- Daily maintenance: Check the oil levels in the compressor pump, inspect for any oil or air leaks, drain condensate from the tank, listen for any odd noises or vibrations, and inspect belts.
- Weekly maintenance: Check air filters to see if they need to be cleaned or replaced, ensure belts/pulleys and bolts are tight, and inspect hoses and connection points for leaks.
- Monthly maintenance: Clean the cooling system’s radiator and fan, check the compressor safety relief valve, and lubricate moving parts, including pistons, bearings, etc.
- Quarterly maintenance: Change the oil and oil filter, clean the motor and electrical connections, and recalibrate pressure gauges if needed.
- Annual maintenance: Schedule a professional service inspection.
Industrial Air Compressor Maintenance: Inspections
Air Compressor Maintenance Checklist
At Cullum & Brown, we offer a free 49-point checklist inspection if you are considering a service agreement as it provides a great baseline to better understand your maintenance needs and goals. Our checklist is broken down into four categories:
- General inspections – Checking the condition of all major components of your air compressor. Including temperature checks, filter conditions, oil conditions, belt conditions, operational checks, identifying air leaks, condensate drain checks, and fan and motor conditions.
- Electrical inspections – Checking both full load and no load voltage and motor amperage, gathering motor nameplate data, inspecting and checking contactors and connection points.
- Diagnostic inspections – Diagnostics for oil and condensate.
- Dryer inspections – Inspecting drains, dryers, and inline filters. Additional services include
Once our field experts complete your compressor maintenance checklist, we will provide you with an overview of urgent maintenance service needs and recommendations to keep your equipment running in top-tier condition.
You Need to Schedule Professional Maintenance If:
- It has been longer than 2000 hours (83 days) since you replaced all of your compressed air filters at the same time.
- It has been longer than 2000 hours since you last performed a lubricant analysis.
- You’ve noticed irregularities in the temperature measurements on your compressed air systems.
- It has been longer than three months since you changed your lubricant, oil filter, inlet filter, or air/oil separators.
Additional Services For Your Air Compressor
When it comes to industrial air compressor maintenance, there is no such thing as too much. Downtime can be extremely costly, so you want to ensure that you are doing regular testing and analysis on top of your scheduled maintenance to pinpoint any potential problems or current major issues that are limiting your efficiency. In addition to a free 49-point inspection, Cullum & Brown offers the following services which can be included in your custom preventative maintenance program:
Vibration Analysis
When components, machines, and structures are in use, they generate standard and repeatable vibrations. Vibration analysis collects this data into a program for thorough analysis, enabling experts to assess the overall equipment condition. Incorporating vibration analysis into maintenance programs allows teams to address common equipment issues as they occur, resulting in numerous benefits:
- Reduced unplanned downtime and risks
- Reduced maintenance costs
- Enhanced reliability
- Extended asset life
- Increased production output
Field Balancing
Cullum & Brown provides field balancing services as part of your preventive maintenance program, in conjunction with vibration analysis. If an issue is uncovered, we correct it onsite to minimize downtime. Our team uses custom reporting to assess and correct balance issues in a 4-step process. We work with you to plan and conduct equipment balancing at the least disruptive time.
The following equipment can be balanced:
- Centrifugal fans
- Squirrel cage fans
- Cooling tower fans
- Large ventilation fans
- Vertical motors
- Hammer mills and mixers
- Other process-rotating equipment
- And more!
Air Quality Testing
Cullum & Brown offers a comprehensive range of purification equipment for our air quality testing to match your system requirements, ensuring both capital and operational costs are kept to a minimum. Compressed air purification is essential in the food and beverage industry for product integrity and consumer safety. We are committed to being your air quality experts and offer an annual compressed air quality test for food and beverage manufacturers against recognized standards.
Condensate Management
Cullum & Brown specializes in handling air compressor byproducts efficiently and responsibly. We manage condensate disposal in compliance with environmental regulations, providing peace of mind and environmental responsibility. Trust us for efficient and ethical condensate management, so you can focus on your operations with confidence.
Leak Detection
Leaks in compressed air systems can cause machine depreciation, decreased efficiency, and increased downtime and costs. At Cullum & Brown, we use SONOTEC’s Sonaphone© for efficient leak detection, enabling us to create custom maintenance plans, decrease energy usage, and improve machine productivity.
The Bottom Line
Proper air compressor maintenance is crucial for protecting operations, minimizing costs, and ensuring compliance with industry standards. Adhering to a comprehensive maintenance routine, including daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks, is essential. Additionally, scheduling professional maintenance based on specific time intervals and tasks, along with availing additional services can significantly enhance equipment reliability, efficiency, and overall performance.
Contact Cullum & Brown today for any industrial air compressor maintenance needs or questions.
