Compressed air line in the shop

A friend of mine gave me his old air compressor. So I will get away with portable compressor and need to run the line in the work shop.
PO of this place did auto body work and he had installed PVC line along the wall. And it is 25 years old.I was looking on the web and many of them don't recommend PVC.
I want to be able to use air tools most and paint guns occasionally.
Can anyone tell me ideal set up or share your set up?

Thank you for in advance.

On compressor by workbench, I use a tee outlet for (1) coiled air hose at bench and (2) long air hose suspended from rafters affording access to outside areas.
With fast connects everywhere.
Was supposed to be a temporary make-shift setup, years ago, but never got around to refining the system.

PVC pipe would probably look neater.

The portable air bottle is also handy.

Good Fortune!

With paint and blast cabinets especially, you want to make sure you have a water trap (with drain) in the line, and a filter to remove water. With air tools, it's good to have an inline oiling system. Just keep those things on separate legs of the hose or pipe...

If your workshop is attached to the house, make sure you turn the compressor off when done... I've been woken a few times when mine kicked on in the middle of the night.

You don't mention the size or whether it's 220v or 110v - When they are running, they do consume a fair amount of power. Make sure the circuits in your workshop can handle the load with all the other things that could be on the same circuit. I had a heated parts washer in my garage that when combined with a large portable 110v compressor would kick the circuit breaker. I ended up running a 50amp circuit to the garage to give enough power and to have a 220v capability out there.

Thank you Patton and Jeff.

I will have one leg with hose reel suspended from ceiling.
It has separate from house (150ft or so) and separate 200 amp service. The unit is set up for 220V.
Is PVC unsafe? I read some said.

There is a product from Garage Pak that is designed for home compressed air systems. It uses special compression fittings that are much more reliable than glueing slip joints. If I was building a new system for my garage, I would trust it much more than using than a glued system, but the expensive is definitely higher.

Other than that, I don't like glued PVC systems for compressed air whether it's rated for it or not. If you must glue, use schedule 80 pipe and fittings and please point all the fittings in a safe direction and use good supports on the fittings to take the stress off the pipes.

You may also want to consider installing an air breaker that will automagically kill the flow of air from the tank in the event of a sudden decompression in the line (i.e. broken connection). Just make sure it's rated higher than your tools...My experience is that they don't completely stop the flow of air, but it's reduced enough to make the situation safe.

There are other safer alternatives like ABS, that are designed to carry compressed air and I would urge you to look into those and dump the idea of PVC.

And, one last thought, hose is cheap, albeit not as pretty. You can hide the horizontal runs in the attic and drop it anywhere you please with a minimal amount of build time. Don't like your design, piece of cake. Hose is completely portable.

"If your workshop is attached to the house, make sure you turn the compressor off when done... I've been woken a few times when mine kicked on in the middle of the night"

glad to see I'm not the only one LOL
plumber run air to check their lines for leaks in new installations, that I know (where are ya Plummen) but as far as constant pressure over time, I would not be confident

Would you want to be standing in the garage when the pvc line shatters?

My system is total overkill, but the supplies were free.

1" black pipe from the compressor in one corner, all the way to the next corner, around that corner to the next corner where it drops to 3/4" black pipe. Water traps at each corner and drops coming off the top of the black pipe every 6-8'.

My electric is total overkill also, 200 amp to the garage with 5 220 outlets and 5 20 amp 110 outlets on each wall.
Plus a rotary phase converter and a VFD for 3 phase power.

And all the electric is in conduit, surface mounted.

Started out as a two car garage on a 15 amp breaker with one outlet.

I do get carried away :laugh:

stonemaster wrote:

"If your workshop is attached to the house, make sure you turn the compressor off when done... I've been woken a few times when mine kicked on in the middle of the night"

glad to see I'm not the only one LOL
plumber run air to check their lines for leaks in new installations, that I know (where are ya Plummen) but as far as constant pressure over time, I would not be confident

black pipe or L copper would be my choice

I have one compressor and one hose. The hose goes where i go. Roy

roy-b-boy-b wrote:

I have one compressor and one hose. The hose goes where i go. Roy

Roy, that's the way mine is now too.
Trying to be little modern.

Garage Pak is nice but $$$.
And no, I don't want PVC pipe explodes. I will run something other than PVC on the wall now. Thinking 3/4"copper pipe.

Abs is apparently osha approved. Pex is not approved but seems to be safer

That said, it is not as bullet proof as steel pipe. Copper is stupidly expensive and not as strong as steel.

I know of many shop which were plumbed in pvc, and some in pex. I have not seen one fail under pressure yet, though I have seen one pipe get broken when a 2x4 went through it. But the board was much more exciting.