It’s become painfully obvious I need to upgrade my air compressing game. I don’t have a ton of room in my shop. I’d love to build an outside enclosure for the new compressor but I’m wondering about winter. Any issues running a compressor outside when it’s below freezing?
That would give you dryer air than you would in the humid months…
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The problem with putting it outside(I know plenty of guys that do it) is when it is real cold they start hard, belts slip etc until they get turning. I have been wanting to build a house for mine for awhile but I am afraid I may burn it out trying to start on a 15 degree day. I think you can change the oil to a winter weight oil but if you forget to change it back for the summer it can’t be good.
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Guys that I know that have their compressor outside have a 100 watt light bulb or small space heater in the enclosure during the winter months.
I think a small block heater would work best. Stick it right to the pump.
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I have a two stage compressor inside and it’s not that bad.
Have a door and or window going into the enclosure from the shop, during the winter leave the door and or window open a bit.
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My compressor lives in its own little room out side, been there for about 10 years.
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What is the air supply to your compressor? Is it just ‘open’ to the outside air or do you pipe it in from conditioned air from your shop? I live in NC and I wouldn’t ever have my compressor sucking in the 90% + Humidity to fill its tank.
It just pulls in air from the vent above the door. It has a auto drain and a 12" drop I drain every few days. Only trouble I have is on days were the temp gets over 95 it will over heat the motor. I open the door and put a 20" fan in the door way and its good to go. never had a problem with the cold in the winter.
For me outside and unheated is out of the question… too cold. Do you have high ceilings? I used some dead space over my boiler board. I built a platform and installed it up and out of the way. I did have a tractor and a few helpers to get it up and installed.
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I would be nervous with humidity getting into Plasma cutter. Not worth damaging a machine.
If you use synthetic oil the cold air wont affect the viscosity of the oil one bit. Thats what we used in Alaska. when normal oil would freeze mobile one will flow like water. This oil can be used year round.