Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking I need an air compressor. I have a sand blast cabinet I’d like to be able to use, and it needs a pretty substantial compressor behind it. I might be able to run my grinders on 3-6 gallon compressor, but the sand blaster would destroy it. I was dismayed to find that most air compressors priced under $500 these days are oil-free. I don’t know how they stay lubricated, but whatever it is will eventually wear out. I wouldn’t using a compressor in a professional capacity, so it might not be a problem, but why take the chance? Plus, I’ve read that oil-free compressors are significantly louder than oil-lubed ones. Because I planned to keep the air compressor inside the garage, the noise level is a priority.
Lowes and Home Depot didn’t have a ton of choice for air compressors larger than 8 gallons. The options above that size were perfectly capable, but a bit too expensive for me. Harbor Freight had a few choices that were oil-lubed where a comparable Lowes or H-D unit weren’t, but the prices were too high for a complex piece of equipment from a store that’s known for less than stellar quality. The 90 day warranty on a $300 and up item is a complete joke. I remembered Tractor Supply, and found a perfectly fine air compressor there. It’s a Porter Cable 24 gallon unit, with an agreeable price of $220. The warranty on this is 2 years for the pump, and 1 year for everything else. Not amazing, but a hell of a lot better than 90 days.
An air compressor needs electricity to run, and of course there isn’t any in my garage. There are some old electrical wires there that suggest it has had electricity in the past, but I do not know the source of it. And even if I did, I probably wouldn’t try to use it. Luckily, I was hit with a bolt of inspiration. While I could just run a long extension cord from the house to the garage every time I wanted to plug something in, why couldn’t I run that extension cord into a regular outlet instead? Turns out, it’s a thing. I got an electrical box, outlets, and a male plug to hook everything up.
The picture shows things pretty succinctly. The male end of the extension cord plugs into an outlet near the back door of the house, and the female end plugs into the “tail” from the electrical box, powering up the outlet. It works great so far. The cord plugged into the outlet goes to the air compressor.
The air compressor is also great so far. It takes a little while to fill up an empty tank, but recycle time isn’t too bad. It’s also not quite as loud as I was expecting. The 50 foot hose I got is just adequate to reach the back of the cars in the driveway. I think what I’m going to do is get some PVC air hose and string it along the ceiling joists to get a couple air outlets by the overhead doors and one by the sand blaster.
I was struck by more inspiration later in the day when I realized I could connect more outlets to the one I installed so I wouldn’t have to have extension cords all over the place. I think I’m going to add a few in each back corner of the garage.
I was almost bowled over by inspiration when I realized I could add some LED lights to the garage just as easily as outlets. I’m really, really looking forward to that, which should be in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.
