HOW MUCH DOES A COMPRESSED AIR LEAK COST?

August 6, 2018

Air. It’s free, right? We have become so acustomed to living surrounded by the mixture of gasses we call atmosphere we often forget it’s there.

But atmospheric air alone is not a productive force. Factories and other productive facilities around the globe use the atmosphere to do work for us – but first, it must be compressed.

A recent survey by the U.S. Department of Energy showed that for a typical industrial facility, approximately 10% of the electricity consumed is for generating compressed air. For some facilities, compressed air generation may account for 30% or more of the electricity consumed.

But the cost of compressed air is not only the energy we use to produce it, we must account for running costs such as maintenance and the cost of the equipment itself.

The cost of compressed air according to the DoE.

So, how much does compressed air cost?

It’s generally agreed that compressed air has a cost of roughly $0.25 dollars per every 1,000 cubic feet that are produced.

That means a tiny leak of just 4 scfm can cost close to $500 dollars every year!

So how much is leakage costing your facility?

Give us a call and to see if a leak detection survey is a good fit for you, or maybe our Ultrasonic Leak Detector can help you locate and fix costly leaks.