You're Getting a Compressor Rental. Now What?

By: Chad Larrabee, Global Product Manager, Oil Free Rotary

In my previous blog post, we talked about air compressor rental services and the importance of contingency planning to be prepared in the event of unexpected downtime. Now I want to discuss what happens when you’re executing the plan to get a compressor rental in place. What do you need to know, ask, and do?

The first thing you should share with your compressor rental service provider is the reason for the rental.

Did your equipment fail or are you supplementing for increased seasonal demand? Obviously, timing and urgency are different in these two scenarios. To ensure that the service provider has the information needed to determine what type of compressor to implement, be able to readily answer the following:

• What’s the required pressure and flow?
• What’s the available voltage? 
• Will you need a dryer, and if so, what type?
• Do you need interconnecting hoses for the compressor and dryer?
• Where is the nearest connection point and what type of connection point is it?

In addition to the critically important technical details, there are also a number of logistics to consider:

• How big of a machine can your infrastructure handle?
• Will the compressor be located indoors or outdoors?
• Do you have a forklift big enough to unload the rental, or should the service provider make arrangements to unload?
• Can you imagine trying to figure out all of this stuff in the middle of unexpected, emergency downtime?

It makes a good case for contingency planning, especially because lack of compressed air can cost a plant a bundle in lost production. Even the short window of downtime needed to switch out one compressor for the other would negatively affect production output, so think of how exasperating it would be to find a supplier and go through the “20 questions” above when a contingency plan in place could get the truck rolling much sooner.

Sometimes the facility may need to use a diesel compressor that is portable and does not require electricity to function, but this is usually not optimal. More on this later.

Source: PlantServices.com