Help buying air compressor

T

twopu

New member
I've been wanting to get an air compressor for detailing but could never convince my wife. Now that we have a new house I "Need" one for winterizing my sprinkler system, and installing crown molding, inflating the car tire/misc stuff. I know nothing about brands, PSI and tank size so I would do I need to do all these jobs?

Thanks
 
twopu said:
I've been wanting to get an air compressor for detailing but could never convince my wife. Now that we have a new house I "Need" one for winterizing my sprinkler system, and installing crown molding, inflating the car tire/misc stuff. I know nothing about brands, PSI and tank size so I would do I need to do all these jobs?

Thanks
Click to expand...



A small pancake compressor would do everything you mentioned. A small brad nailer suitable for nailing molding doesn't take much. You can check the cfm rating of the tool you need vs the cfm rating of the compressor. Lowes has a pretty nice Porter-Cable pancake on sale for $149 till 12/31 (after rebate price I believe). You can certainly get cheaper ones, but I prefer the PC stuff because it's definitely made to last. One like this will probably last you indefinitely.



Now if you ever plan on using some serious air tools, you'll need a better one. I've got my eye on this one:

PC C3151



It's big enough to do a decent impact wrench.
 
Yah, I was looking at the pancake compressor. My only concern is if it can handle blowing out my sprinkler system. I'm new at this so I don't know how big of a tank I need.
 
Well..I can tell you that a pancake compressor would never have the volume to winterize a sprinkler system.



I have a 7hp, 220v, 60 gallon compressor and I dont think it would do the job either.



When they come to winterize my system, they bring a trailer mounted compressor......the same compressors we use on job sites to power multiple large jackhammers at one time.



I would leave this to the pros to do......you have to have enough constant cfm to not only fill the lines with a good amount of pressure, but be able to maintain that pressure as the air is lost thru the sprinkler heads.



If you have a small sprinkler system.....a larger home compressor could work...but I know with mine (over an acre and 50+ heads)...I need something alot bigger than what I have!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top