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Frozen air compressor??

M.B. Naegle

Diamond
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Location
Conroe, TX USA
South Texas is typically pretty wet, but this cold thing is not common! It got down bellow zero last night and this morning there's no compressed air. The compressor is outside our building on the west side under an awning. The building is well insulated and was nice and warm when we came in, but the compressor itself and the first 10' of pipe are not climate controlled.

Checked all the valves and breakers (compressor gets shut down at night). The tank gauges show full pressure, but the condensation drains all have nothing coming out. All we have is a puff of air coming out of the air nozzle of a VMC that's closest to the compressor. When we put the system together we put all the pipes on an incline sloping back into the compressor tank, but i'm guessing there is a low spot along the pipe outside with enough stationary water that it froze and blocked the pipe.

It's simple science, so I guess I'm just whining:nopity:, but anyone else ever dealt with this?
 
"Heat Trace" the condensation lines.

And while your in there poking around, make damn sure your pressure relief
and electrical control switch cannot be excluded from seeing tank pressure.
NO MATTER WHAT.

Also drain the interstage cooler if you have one.
 
Ok, so we have a smaller back-up compressor bellow our main one. Had to fill the tank but it't finally up to pressure as is the rest of the building. So the blockage is in the main compressor itself apparently.

I'm thinking there's 2 blockages: There's a pressure regulator just past the tank but before the junction with the auxiliary compressor, that probably froze, and there's probably a sheet of ice at the bottom of the tank keeping the drains from working.
 
Well below zero in south Texas?? Maybe C instead of F? Where exactly are you, we are 45 miles south of San Antonio and my thermometer read 29F. I went out this morning and checked faucets (all of them ran), kicked the cows water troughs to break the ice and plugged a couple of irrigation drains to keep the mice out. The weatherman did say we had a lot of hours below freezing which is unusual for this time of year.
Maybe pour some warm water on the outside pipe?
 
Well below zero in south Texas?? Maybe C instead of F? Where exactly are you, we are 45 miles south of San Antonio and my thermometer read 29F. I went out this morning and checked faucets (all of them ran), kicked the cows water troughs to break the ice and plugged a couple of irrigation drains to keep the mice out. The weatherman did say we had a lot of hours below freezing which is unusual for this time of year.
Maybe pour some warm water on the outside pipe?

Ah, 27F (dang metric system) not bellow zero, below freezing though. See, I'm not used to it! lol

We're in Conroe, just north of Houston. It was down to 28 last night but with the wind and humidity, it feels colder.

This is weird though as we have had freezing temps already this season and in the past, but this is the first time it effected the compressor....
 
That would have to been one cold pocket of air to be 0F. Hours below freezing was probably high there also and you may have had an air leak that puddled condensation in a vulnerable spot. Since it has never happened before maybe it will never happen again.

Late freezes can play some havoc, in 2003 we had 19 degrees on Mar 19 and it killed the neighbors oat patch as dead as a door nail. The cattle did graze on the dry brown oats for a while though.
 
Run a heat gun along the spots you suspect froze. Do warm up the relief valve as Doug suggested. Cold could also cause the pressure switch to stick in the on/running position. Therefore the relief valve is critical.
Winter be over. PLEASE
 
My neighbor farmer said the oats didn't make it one year because the snow cover blew off.
 
Up here in the Siberia of the USA we use heat tapes and wrap pipe with insulation. The heat tape turns on around 40 F so the pipes stay above freezing. You could also buy a Torpedo heater or rent one and blow it on the pipe. I would open the relief vale and turn off the compressor. Get a infrared temp gun and check the pipe. to be sure it is warm enough to melt the water in the pipes. Then after it is thawed drain the water. You may want to extend the shed out over the exposed pipe. Because of Earth Cooling.
 
Yep, the main compressor is off at the moment while our little auxiliary compressor is running the shop.
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We have an automatic drain on the compressor that opens for a couple seconds every 30 minutes. Below that there's a purge valve that's all the way open right now. Last couple times I was out there I manually cycled the automatic valve and some water started to dribble out of the line.
 
Well 7 hours later, the compressor is un-frozen. It probably would have been done sooner but the little compressor was doing it's job and I had stuff to do.

If global warming keeps doing it's thing and these cold snaps become an issue, I'll see about installing some kind of heater under the tank as that seems to be where most of the condensation was. I may also see about flipping the pressure regulator on the tank 180 degrees so the knob and diaphragm are on top and there's less chance of water settling in there.
 
My neighbor farmer said the oats didn't make it one year because the snow cover blew off.

Yeah my understanding is frozen is not a problem, but frozen and wind and they kinda freeze dry and then as they thaw they die rather than simply coming back from suspended animation.
 
Sounds like you need an automatic tank drain to keep the water out of the system.

We've got them (Post #13;)), but we shut them off with the compressor at night so they don't bleed off air while the compressor isn't replenishing it. So there's always a little bit to be drained when the drain is turned back on in the morning. We also shut off air to machines and work stations at night as 99% of leaks tend to be there and not in the pipes along the ceiling. We do this to avoid losing air, while also avoiding having something burst or fail while no one is around to fix it.
 
Yeah my understanding is frozen is not a problem, but frozen and wind and they kinda freeze dry and then as they thaw they die rather than simply coming back from suspended animation.

That must be it, because we generally get a spell of -20f for a week or two
in feb. each year, and I don't hear of any losses normally.
 
Up here in the Siberia of the USA we use heat tapes and wrap pipe with insulation. The heat tape turns on around 40 F so the pipes stay above freezing. You could also buy a Torpedo heater or rent one and blow it on the pipe. I would open the relief vale and turn off the compressor. Get a infrared temp gun and check the pipe. to be sure it is warm enough to melt the water in the pipes. Then after it is thawed drain the water. You may want to extend the shed out over the exposed pipe. Because of Earth Cooling.

Garrison Keeler used to have a spoof sponsor on A prairie Home Companion called:
"Minnesotans FOR Global Warming"
 
We moved from northern Idaho to Texas when I was 8 and I remember telling my parents that I was "tired of freezing my butt off."

Well Texas just had it's own brand by way of "sweating your butt off." Plus, you can always put more layers on, but there's a point where taking too much off gets you in trouble with the law.
 








 
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