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What You Should Know About Buying An Air Compressor?

Knowledge is power. Enjoy this simple list to help first time buyers on selecting their first industrial air compressor to meet their needs.

If you have never bought a rotary screw air compressor before; do the following. Add up the air consumption of all the equipment at your shop. That will be the amount of air your desired compressor should provide. Most people, however, buy a bigger air compressor, as these machines tend to lose air during load-unload times. On the other hand, you can consider buying two equally sized compressors and use them on tandem. Unfortunately, that option may be too expensive for everyone, which leaves us with the option of buying one big machine that has the following features.

  1. After cooler
  2. – Your ideal air compressor must have an after cooler to cool the compressed air before it leaves to feed air tools. Air coolers also help eliminate moisture in the compressed air, which would otherwise condensate into water and reduce the machine’s performance.
  3. Variable Speed Drive
  4. – Variable speed drives in rotary screw compressors help match your equipment’s demands with the machine’s output. In effect, a variable speed drive helps save on energy consumption, since the compressor will lower or increase horsepower usage depending on demand.
  5. Integrated air dryer
  6. – This feature helps eliminate moisture and oils in compressed air, which in turn improves efficiency while prolonging the machine’s service life.
  7. Air Flow
  8. – It is always about the air flow when it comes to a compressor’s capability. As such, choose a machine whose air flow is huge enough to match the demands of your tools and equipment.

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Who we are and how Ash Air can help your business!

Ash Air has been around in New Zealand since 1979, and we’ve grown into a nationwide company with international support and a reputation for quality and reliability.We look after all things compressed air for your business!

  • Reciprocating, Screw, air compressors
  • Vacuum pumps
  • Nitrogen
  • An extensive line of air treatment components

Ash Air's range of Chicago Pneumatic, Alup, Pneumatech, and Quincy compressors are used extensively around the world in industries ranging from oil and gas to food, automotive and farming, and we bring you these world class compressors here in the land of the long white cloud.Our technicians are compressed air equipment experts and are dedicated to addressing customer needs. Supported by a 13 locations nationwide, Ash Air offers one of the widest selections of compressed air equipment and parts available today in New Zealand.

Reliability and Efficiency

With Ash Air compressors, you can count on reliability and high performance for even the most demanding applications. We focus our efforts on the following:

  • Increasing uptime
  • Reducing unexpected repairs
  • Reducing energy consumption
  • Improving the cleanliness of compressed air


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Read more from our #expertcorner


Just like any other equipment, a compressed air installation also requires the necessary maintenance work during its entire lifespan. Even though maintenance costs are only about 5 to 10% of a machine's annual operating costs, failure to budget for maintenance can have potentially disastrous consequences.


The air dyer is one of the most ignored cooler in the system. A dirty condenser will cause water in the lines, or worse it will cause complete dryer failure.