Why renting a blower is “not” like renting an air compressor
Renting blowers requires a bit more application information than renting your standard air compressor. Not only because blowers are used in air and gas applications as well as in pressure or vacuum service; but because they are usually located inside a process that may need very specific performance to keep the process functional. Air compressors ~100 psi are largely considered a utility vs a process piece of equipment. You specify pressure and flow and what driver, either electrical motor or engine driven and off you go. It is quite easy to apply as a rental as it plugs into the existing compressed air system as long the pressure meets requirements. When it comes to lower pressure some rental companies will manifold many high-pressure compressors to deliver the flow and then regulate down the pressure to suit the application need of a single blower application. This is very expensive to rent, but also consumes a vast amount of un-necessary power or fuel.
When you have a blower rental need, you need a blower expert with experience in applications to ensure a successful project. Here are few things to consider before just renting any blower someone might have in a yard.
Why Rent?: Many inquiries we receive are due to unplanned outages where a there is a need to ship immediately from our large for 24/7 emergency response. Some rentals are planned outages where the main units are taken offline or repaired and there needs to be a temporary system in place or a redundant system as back up. Other times there may be a need for temporary blowers to test or boost production for a trial period before the decision is made to buy equipment.
Performance: Blowers have specific flow and pressure needs. A performance curve of the rental blower must be matched to what is required- not just flow and pressure, but also for the variability of flow and pressure for the application. Lone Star Blower’s application engineers have many years of experience matching processes with the right blower and will match your process needs with blowers for your specific temperature, gas mixtures, pressure and flow, as well as the altitude the equipment will be operated at. Involving our applications engineers will ensure there will be no process interruption once your temporary blower is installed.
Blower Technology: Our application experts will select the best blower technology for your application. We offer positive displacement blowers as well as multistage and single stage turbo type blowers. Some processes require positive displacement type blowers for applications such as pneumatic conveying. Other processes cannot tolerate any oil contaminates or pulsation, so they require centrifugal type blowers that deliver a steady contaminate free air or gas. Larger flows are most often centrifugal to avoid multiple manifolded smaller blowers.
Connectivity: If a site is not pre-piped to connect to a rental unit this maybe challenging and require some fabrication. Lone Star Blower carries a large inventory of adaptor flanges and flexible piping to assist. In many cases, we can fit a blower from our rental inventory as a drop-in replacement blower where no customization is needed.
Blower Control: While we offer variable frequency starters that assist with regulating flow, we can also include a control panel to automate the operation and protect the blower from damage. If the user wants to set a flow set point, pressure set point or even input a control variable, a local control panel can self-regulate the performance to satisfy the process and give two-way communication with a plant SCADA system.
Area Classification: For many process gas blowers in vacuum or pressure service the entire package must be rated to the area classification: Class1, Division 2 or Class 1, Division 1 combined with its letter code. Putting a rental blower package not suitable in these areas could literally create an explosive situation! We will work with you during the specification of your application to be sure that your rental will meet any area classification requirements.
Prevent an Emergency?: Unplanned outages usually have a cause. Lone Star Blower can assist to improve reliability by offering application engineering to find the root cause of your unplanned outage and offer a solution. Upgrade controls, changing performance of the existing blowers, or offering a new blower option.
Lone Star Blower is your One Source for Blower Rental Applications. Our application engineers are experts in understanding your unique needs so that your rental will offer uninterrupted service to your operations. We have a large fleet of blowers 200 to 90,000 cfm and up to 20 psi delta pressure in air, gas, pressure or vacuum applications, and because we manufacture blowers, we can make to order any flow and pressure usually within 1-2 days!
In addition to blower rentals, Lone Star Blower is also a manufacturer of geared, gearless and multistage turbo blowers from 20 to 6000 hp and up to 30 psi delta pressure in air, gas, pressure or vacuum applications. We are located at 8883 West Monroe Road Houston, Texas 77061
www.lonestarblower.com 832-532-3112
Rentals are available to ship 24 hours a day.
