Can anyone advise re compressors please

TomsMom

I'm looking for a bit of advice please.

I live on the coast and fairly close to the beach and my house is subjected to a lot of sand being blown about a lot of the time (not just in the recent storms).

My DG windows and doors seem to be collecting sand in the grooves around the opening parts and it builds up and makes opening/closing windows difficult. Obviously a good clean out once a year is probably the answer but because of age and lack of strength plus suffering from breathing difficulties this isn't an easy job for me, climbing up a ladder with a brush or the hose of a vacuum cleaner isn't really an option.

It was suggested that getting a compressor might be an idea and it could be used to "blow" and sand away and clear out the grooves, drainage holes, etc.

Would this work? If so, as I have no ideas of what sort of compressor would be suitable for the job, can anyone suggest what I might look for?

vaio

the wolf range are ridiculously cheap for what you get. We use the cub version in very light duty industrial applications and they seem to work fine

Stooby2

If you're thinking of blowing the sand out from the ground without the need to climb a ladder then it's not going to work. You'll still need to get up to the problem areas to properly blow the sand out, which means you'll need a long air hose with a blow gun on the end. You'll need a proper set of goggles, dust mask and preferably some ear defenders.

A small 25 litre compressor will, work, but will be recharging almost constantly while you're working. A bigger one would be better, but heavier to move around.

Is it not possible to use a vacuum from the inside, if the problem is around ths openings?

TomsMom

Stooby2 wrote: »

If you're thinking of blowing the sand out from the ground without the need to climb a ladder then it's not going to work. You'll still need to get up to the problem areas to properly blow the sand out, which means you'll need a long air hose with a blow gun on the end. You'll need a proper set of goggles, dust mask and preferably some ear defenders.

A small 25 litre compressor will, work, but will be recharging almost constantly while you're working. A bigger one would be better, but heavier to move around.

Is it not possible to use a vacuum from the inside, if the problem is around ths openings?

I can vacuum around the doors no problem, in fact I did yesterday, I can stand in the doorway, see everything and the hose will reach all the way around without any difficulty. It's the windows that are going to be difficult. A step ladder would be needed to reach all around and into the grooves and to see what I'm doing, plus even though the hose is stretchy most of the windows are out of the reach when the hose is stretched. As I said, age comes into it and I don't want to overbalance and fall off the step ladder.

Ear defenders, I didn't realise compressors were that noisy - see I'm not au fait with them, not had reason to use one before, don't even know how big they are , it's just something someone mentioned that might solve my problem.

I've spoken to the local DG company who I know well and asked if they do "window doctoring" and said that as I'm now on my own these are the sort of things I've not had to do before. They are so busy that they don't have time to do this sort of maintenance type work . They're also the only people I know and would trust to do a good job. I've had two windows fitted by a cowboy and it's not something I want to take a chance on again.

Thanks for your reply, very informative .

nobulljusttruth

Compressors are quite hand around the house. They work on two basic principals.

Pressure (Psi) this is fairly standard being 120-140 psi across the board. Even the big road compressor s for those noisy drills give out 140 max,

Volume: (FAD) this is the main difference. The bigger the pump the larger the volume of air that ends up coming out of the blow gun.
This is effected by length of the hose, internal diameter and tool being used.
For you job a small 5cfm DIY machine with a 25 lts tank will be fine, but will also blow up tyres, and with a small gun, spray your fence, but as mentioned will run all the time and run out of air. This means you have to wait for it to build up. 25mtrs of 1/16th bore hose will do.
Machine Mart, Halfords, etc

vaio

1/16 bore is only 1.5mm, that will strangle the compressor.

Even cheap hose will be 6mm bore, for 25m length I'd go for 10mm

nobulljusttruth

vaio wrote: »

1/16 bore is only 1.5mm, that will strangle the compressor.

Even cheap hose will be 6mm bore, for 25m length I'd go for 10mm

5/16ths sorry. If you use PCL quick connectors the nipple exit is 5/16th so hose size makes no difference.

80):D

3/8ths bore is good for most air tools, but many use far to much FAD, ie sanders, spray guns, nut runners.

TomsMom

Someone mentioned that Aldi are having a compressor in their Special Buys soon. Can anyone tell me if this is worth thinking about please?

https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/specialbuys/thursday-13th-march/product-detail/ps/p/25hp-air-compressor/

Accessories: https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/specialbuys/thursday-13th-march/product-detail/ps/p/air-compressor-accessories-kit/

Nilrem

That's the same basic model a lot of places sell (I bought one years ago and it's been branded under loads of different names*), and so far I've been impressed with it, it's done car tyres, putting in a raised floor in the garage, cutting sheet metal etc.

The two downsides to it are:
1: Like most big and cheap compressors it's very noisy in use (ear protection is advised if you're running it near you).
2: The total airflow isn't really high enough for high power tools which need a good continuous flow rate, you can end up having to wait a few seconds every couple of minutes (with the motor running much of the time).

For tyres and cleaning stuff it's great as you don't need a lot of airflow for that.

When we bought ours they had the kit included as part of the deal, but that was years ago, and the tools included are pretty good (the tyre gun alone can cost £5-10, and the airlines are often a tenner a time), with the possible exception of the sprayer (the bottle on ours cracked almost immediately).

I ended up running a permanent airline in our garage for some of the tools as we put the compressor in a large cupboard to store and keep the noise down, and buying a retracting line for the tyre inflater as it made life easier when doing our car tyres (and the sisters, nephews, neighbours...)


*IIRC Wolfcraft (I think it was) used to basically import them from China branded for most of the big retail chains (the only thing that tended to change was the paint/decals and what you got in the box), and deal with the support of them (ours came missing the wheels).

TomsMom

Many thanks Nilrem, I appreciate your detailed reply. I'm still very unsure if this is the way to go when really all I'm looking for is a way to clean sand out of my windows. It seems a very expensive and noisy way of going about it, and it wont really help me reach the higher ones any easier. I think I'll put this thought on the back burner for now.