In 2004, we moved from a rented facility in Oldsmar into our own building in Tampa. The air compressor we had in the old facilities had to be 30-40 years old, but it just kept on running. I decided it didn’t make any sense to move it but to buy a new one instead, a 15 hp piston pump with splash lubrication just like the old one. The only difference was that the new one had a vertical tank instead of the horizontal tank. We also added an automatic water drain that flushed the tank every thirty minutes. After only 13 years, the pump went out. We were still struggling at the time so we fixed it ourselves. It took us over two days and it was a dirty, nasty job. About three weeks ago, the replacement pump was loosing compression. We are too busy to mess with it so we called for a service tech to come out. That company sent a salesman instead. The only thing more useless than a salesman trying to sell you something you don’t want is a salesman trying to sell you something you don’t want, and he doesn’t know crap. We sent him away and waited for the tech. A little over a week later, while still waiting for the tech, the pump failed completely. They finally sent the tech out, who charged us $820 to tell us what we already knew…the pump was bad. Then they wanted to charge us over $8,000 to replace the pump. That would have been just plain stupid.

I began looking at alternatives. About 11 years ago, I was visiting Stephen Tucker at Tranquillo Golf Club in Orlando. He was showing off all of the improvements to his shop including painted floors, new storage shelving, additional lifts and of course, new grinders. But the thing of which he was most proud was his rotary screw compressor with refrigerated dryer and after compression cooling. I was familiar with screw compressors because we used them in our medical device manufacturing facilities but I never had to purchase one. I knew they were expensive and more of a luxury. But I also know that they last a lot longer with a lot less maintenance. I began looking at different options, two smaller compressors or one larger compressor when the decision was made for us based on lead times…one larger compressor. We ordered it from Grainger on Thursday and got it on Monday. A couple of days later, Karl had it installed and up and running. It was only $4,000 more than new piston pump installed or $7,000 more than repairing our old compressor but it included the refrigerated air dryer and the after cooler which were about $5,000 extra so it seemed like a no-brainer. Every one in the shop noticed the difference immediately. The air pressure was higher (we had to buy a bunch of extra filter regulators so as to not overpressure the air tools), there was a lot more volume so they didn’t stall out the air tools. Best of all, the air was dry, a real feat this time of year in Florida. The time to grind the welds on our 6000 doors was cut in half. I was worried that Stephen’s was bigger than mine. It wasn’t. He is coming over for a visit in a couple of weeks and I will be showing it off and bragging that mine is bigger than his.