Why You Need a Backup Air Compressor

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Air compressors are highly-engineered products that are essential for production in millions of businesses globally. In fact, compressed air is so critical to these facilities that it is often called the “fourth utility”! Most production cannot function without their utilities such as electric, water, and gas – and it stands to reason that this is also true of compressed air.  The cost of downtime of this utility needs to be considered in your air system.  Is it important enough to justify a backup unit?  Does the backup just sit around and ‘do nothing’?

The answer is simple: if your business is heavily reliant on compressed air to operate, production will cease, leading to a loss in output, possible production line losses, and costly downtime. Keep in mind that it could be a long time before a compressed air service technician reaches you to complete the repair! And without a backup compressor available for immediate use, the time, money, and productivity lost in the interim between unexpected shutdown and being back up-and-running can be extremely detrimental to the business’ bottom line.

It’s unfortunate, but even the best equipment fails. This means that having a compressor system, complete with a backup compressor, is absolutely critical. Being proactive and purchasing one now, rather than down the road, is the smartest business decision – especially when you weigh the costs versus consequences of not having one. An additional benefit? Having backup compressors means that maintenance can be done at virtually any point in time, rather than after hours or during the holidays or weekends when production isn’t occurring!

The worry of the compressor sitting and doing nothing can also be eliminated by load sharing.  This allows cycling of the compressors to allow even running time for each.  Simple controls evenly allot run time allowing each machine to spread the work and maintenance cycles more efficiently for your business while still protecting production uptime.

1. To minimize any negative impact on production brought on by unexpected downtime.
2. Schedule maintenance on your primary compressor at any point in time. 
3. Using both your primary air compressor and backup air compressor in your application through load sharing.

Rest easy and avoid unplanned chaos – discuss investing in a backup compressor today with an Atlas Copco compressed air expert!