air line through burried steel conduit?

My main question is, does the earth freeze all the way down to the depth of buried hose? If it does, then water in the air line may freeze and plug up the line.

i

I think that it may be easier to get a new electrical line to the garage, in the long run. What if one day you may decide to buy a welder etc. You do the same thing, dig a ditch and put something into the ditch.

i

If you can be sure that the line won't get too hot, I'd use HDPE tubing, often referred to as poly-flo. It's inexpensive and readily available up to 1/2" OD for typical air line pressure. Any supplier of industrial pneumatic components, or McMaster-Carr, should be able to fix you up with the tubing and compression fittings.

If the conduit is real conduit (are the ends threaded?), you could check it for leaks and use it directly as your air line, if it's tight enough.

Say Hi to Rex for me .

Ned Simmons

Wouldn't it be easier to just get an inexpensive, small air compressor and plug it in inside the garage? That way you could have the air wherever you need it. Just a thought. - BTW - I remember: "Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin", but I forget the next two lines.

Why not use the conduit for its intended purpose: run a new, high-capacity electrical circuit to your garage and solve all your problems!

- Michael

I believe it's "You'll never come out the way you went in." Had an English teacher back in high school from that area, she used to repeat the saying quite frequently. But then I never listened much in that class, so I could be remembering incorrectly.

You are unlikely to get much air flow thru 75+ feet of tubing that will fit in that conduit. For intermittent use you could add a tank in the garage. I would suggest a small compressor in the garage and if you need more electrical capacity use the existing conduit. The existing two conductors plus a ground would power a 240V compressor. Don Young

We use miles of this stuff at work

it runs thru conduit and cable trays, indoors and outdoors. We've had very little problems using this tubing. I would suggest that you put an air receiver in the garage to prevent pressure drops that will occur over the

75' of tubing run.

Shawn

Thanks for all the suggestions. will look into poly-flo and parker flex. The conduit is existing, and housed the garage's old electic supply (one lightbulb)

I have since burried a new electric service (50 amp subpanel, direct burrial cable) for the welder,tablesaw,planer..... so I am pushing what I have available for ampacity in the garage. My thought was to keep the compressor in the basement shop where there is lots of ampacity available, and have air drops in both the basement and garage. My air use at the moment is more a novelty than any thing else. I use it to blow dust off things and dry things off.

I guess I am a victim of :I should have put a larger service into the garage, I should have burried it in a conduit, I should have installed an extra conduit, ect. I should have "thought big" from the beginning.

Thanks again for your responses, and hi to rex....roger Andy lynn, lynn.....

Good lesson!

Ditches are expensive, PVC is cheap. Anytime you open a ditch, put in everything you can think of that you might want in the future, and then add extra conduit beyond that. Water? Air? TV? Gas? Telephone? Data?

Vaughn

You could always pull 3 #8's through and run your compressor on 40 amp

240 volts. This would be a seperate cirucuit, would not run through the sub panel.

andy wrote:

I can't give you chapter and verse (it has been too many years), but I believe that may be against code. The issue is that it must be very clear how to kill power to a building. However; if the compressor sat outside and the #8s did not actually enter the garage...

Vaughn

yeah that's it............usta live on johnson st some years back...................

if flow bacame a problem, find a tank, old propane or dead compressor to put at the other end of the line as a reservoir