Air compressor - bottom drain valve - advice re mods

[Howard Rosenberg]

Thanks Wayne.

Thanks Alan.

[Warren Lake]

I wouldnt put a pan to hold water under a compressor

I have a floor that is damp and its rusted the bottom of my compressor badly over 35 years using it here.

[Jerome Stanek]

My drain has a hose to the outside grass grows real fast there

[Myles Moran]

I swapped mine out to a 1/4 turn ball valve. My only advice is to have a pipe wrench because I ended up needing a LOT of leverage to remove the stock valve.

[Charles Lent]

Moisture collection in your compressor tank can cause very serious problems. A faulty pressure switch can too. This is worth watching. It's amazing how much damage that a failed air compressor tank can cause. Notice how thin the tank metal is too. This was a Craftsman, but all of these small air compressors have thin tanks like this. Rust makes it thinner. An explosion like this is about as powerful as several sticks of Dynamite.

I made a condensate reservoir out of a large steel pipe nipple and two reducers and mounted it under the tank. I Connected one end to the tank drain valve port via fittings and an elbow. Then the outlet end of this reservoir was connected through a ball valve that was located where I can get to it easily. The condensate builds up in this reservoir under the tank and not in the tank and I drain it out often, usually daily after use, using the ball valve. At pressure, this is a very quick (and loud) process. I have a similar, but larger condensate tank under my 80 gallon 5 hp compressor. Since it sits in it's own enclosure attached to the side of my shop and doesn't move, I ran the condensate drain pipe from the ball valve up and out through the side of this shed and added one more elbow to point it down toward the ground. It's loud too, but I'm behind the shed wall when I open the ball valve. I always check to assure that the neighbors aren't using their pool though, before opening the valve, because of the sudden and loud noise.

Charley

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...ressor+warning

[Curt Harms]

I always change them to a ball valve. Some, I use a street elbow and nipple to extend it out where it's easy to get to. The only one I haven't changed is on the little aluminum tanked California Air that has a decent valve to start with.

I did the same thing. I tried to locate the 8" nipple where it was out from under the tank but still kind of protected. A second benefit in my mind to this arrangement is that any water will sit in the nipple instead of in the tank. Nipples are easy and cheap to replace is they corrode, tanks no so much.