Thinking of doing your own compressed air leak survey? Leakage programs are not as simple as they sound and without an ongoing plan of attack, you will probably never see the results you thought you could achieve.
The article below highlights common mistakes when doing leak detection in-house. Read the full article in Compressed Air Best Practices.
Doing compressed air leak surveys in house
So you’ve purchased an ultrasonic leak detector after a sales person gave you a demonstration on detecting compressed air leaks. You’ve read all those articles on how air leaks are wasteful, expensive and leakage programs provide good paybacks. Perhaps you’ve even had a go at a leakage survey. Either way, by now you’ve realised leakage programs are not as simple as they sound and without an ongoing plan of attack, you will probably never see the results you thought you could achieve. This article is written to illuminate common mistakes made in leak surveys and hopes to provide guidance on how to turn that around.
Tips for doing the leak survey
If doing compressed air leak surveys in-house here are some tips to help get the best result:
- Budget for repairs
- Dedicate one person to do the leak survey.
- Make sure this person has enough time to do the leak survey and won’t be interrupted to do other tasks.
- Depending on the size of your site, the survey may take 1 day or 2 weeks.
- Get tags for each leak
- Decide how you will record leak and repair information, eg paper & pen, or an app
- At a minimum, you will need to record: location of the leak, how big the leak is, what parts are required to fix the leak, whether the leak can be isolated or repaired during production periods, and how long will it take to fix it.
- If possible, take photos of the leak. This will help you find the leak when you repair it.
Tips for doing leak repairs
Probably the most critical mistake is that everyone thinks leakage surveys start with detecting the leaks. But leakage doesn’t start with detection, leakage starts with the plan for repairs, after all, if you aren’t going to repair the leaks why are you even thinking about doing the leakage survey?
When setting a repair plan you need to decide:
- Who is going to do the repairs?
- eg in-house maintenance staff or external contractors?
- In-house maintenance staff often don’t have time to repair leaks and as a result, you won’t see the results you were expecting
- External contractors / labour hire will be more expensive but they can repair all leaks in one or two days during shut-downs.
- When is the best time to do the repairs?
- eg during shut-down periods or as part of your regular maintenance program?
- How long will the repairs take?
- It can take 10 minutes for simple repairs such as replacing push fittings or tube. More complex repairs such as re-building actuators can take an hour or more.
- What parts will you need and how long will it take to get the parts?
- Do you have enough parts in stock or do you need to order specialist parts?
- Some parts can take 6-8 weeks to arrive.
Learn more about Compressed Air Leak Surveys
Read our other blogs on fixing compressed air leaks and how we saved a customer $83,000 by repairing leaks and adjusting compressor settings.
Need help detecting compressed air leaks? Find out about Compressed Air Alliance’s Leak audit program and view a sample compressed air leak report.
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