Advantages of a SCREW Compressor Against a Piston Compressor

Screw air compressors have certain advantages to reciprocating piston compressors.

Here are some reasons why screw air compressors to be purchased against piston compressors :

You don’t enjoy a loud, noisy compressor beside you all day long!

While piston air compressors generate high levels of noise, namely above 80 dB, a screw air compressor generally is much quieter and creates only 65-75 dB of noise.

You don’t want tons of oil in your compressed air!

Piston air compressors are notorious in oil carry-over because of poor sealing of pistons and 10 ppm is the least oil amount you can expect in your air, without any upper limit. Screw air compressors, on the other hand, may carry only 1 to 7 ppm of oil.

You don’t have excess money to spend on your compressed air generation!

Screw air compressors have higher efficiencies compared to piston compressors. Using a screw air compressor, you can generate on average 30% more CFM per horsepower compared with a piston air compressor. Also, piston compressors have much more maintenance and repair costs over time because of their higher wear and tear and higher vibration amounts.

You have continuous operations, you don’t want your air compressor to stop it!

Piston air compressors cannot work continuously, because of their high working temperatures (300-400 F) and the need to cool down. However, screw air compressors work with a much lower internal temperature range (170-200 F) and that’s why they can operate on a 100% duty cycle. Also, piston air compressors have lower reliability due to more complex design and higher number of vulnerable parts, they have much higher risk of faults and shut-downs.

You don’t want to burn yourself with hot compressed air!

Piston air compressors generate high temperature compressed air of at least 100 F above ambient temperature. Screw air compressors, on the other hand, generate much cooler compressed air in the range of less than 25 F above ambient.