Air Compressor Storage Tank Sizing

A good rule of thumb for most applications is to have three to five gallons of air storage capacity per air compressor cfm output.

Air compressor storage tank sizing.

In contrast using a small finish nailer to do some trim work in your basement would probably suffice with for example a small three gallon tank. A simple and straightforward rule for sizing an air receiver tank for a reciprocating air compressor is to take the tool with the highest cfm requirement at the required psi multiply that cfm requirement by 1 25 or 1 5 and then round up to the closest gallon size. For example if all needed tools require 20 cfm for a maximum of 15 minutes per hour then the minimum volume is 20 cfm x 15 min 300 cubic feet. Use the total airflow requirement and estimate the amount of time a maximum air capacity will be needed.

The compressor motor starts pumps air into the tank and when the tank pressure reaches the high level cut out the compressor motor stops. That requires more airflow therefore a bigger tank can store a larger volume of air industrial compressors can have air tanks as big as 60 gallons or more. For most applications it makes sense to have a combination of wet and dry storage. So if your air compressor is rated for 100 cfm you would want 300 to 500 gallons of compressed air storage.

It is recommended to have a minimum of 2 gallons of storage per every cfm and we highly recommend having 4 gallons of storage per cfm. If you have a 1 gallon air tank and the air compressor is set to shut off at 90 psi when the compressor stops you will have 1 gallon of air pressurized to 90 psi. Air tanks how large should i size my air tank. Sizing an air compressor requires a logical sequence of steps to determine the proper amount of air for the application.

Here is a quick sheet showing the air compressor horsepower average cfm or output and recommended tank size.