Energy conservation is no longer a luxury it is a priority for smart business owners. An auto body shop or collision repair center that operates one or more paint booths is going to feel the pinch in energy consumption, especially high volume shops. Fortunately, there are many ways to save energy when using your paint booth. Here are a few.
Perhaps you live in an area where newly enacted local, state, or even federal laws are demanding greater energy efficiency as many paint booth operators do. In that case finding ways to improve energy efficiency is not only good business, it’s imperative.
One way to do that is to update your paint booth with a new energy efficient motor system. At Accudraft Paint Booths, we offer an EnergySmart VFD Drive that works to eliminate energy spikes that bloat your energy bills.
Our systems can be either added to your paint booth as an upgrade or added to your air filtration unit. You will see a noticeable drop in your energy costs. If you use an older paint booth, chances are it is not equipped with many of the modern advances in energy efficiency, costing half as much more to operate than an updated system.
VFD or Variable Frequency Drives save energy in multiple ways. An Accudraft VFD Drive can be installed to an existing paint booth, even older models, or stand alone makeup units. They include three main features for additional energy savings:
When you start up your car, that burst of fuel needed to ignite your engine and get it running creates an energy spike. In your home and at your body shop those spikes translate into thousands of dollars in energy costs.
VFDs eliminate start up spikes using what is called a soft starting motor. These motors warm up to their normal speed instead of spiking and then settling back.
Your VFD unit will also give your greater control over the air pressure within your paint booth. These units regulate the pressure inside of the enclosure automatically by adjusting the speed of your paint booth’s turbine fans. Often your workers will never have to adjust the pressure manually, not only saving on energy costs but also increasing productivity.
In a busy shop your paint booth is typically running all day long. Whenever you step away for a second your system continues to run at maximum power. Our EnergySmart VFD System will automatically power down and idle whenever you stop spraying the pump reducing wasted energy throughout the day by up to 50% overall.
None of these other methods are going to work if you are still using an inefficient 30 to 40 year old paint booth that uses indirect-fire heating. You lose up to 30% of the heat emitted by an indirect-fire heated paint booth whereas a direct-fire heated paint booth averages a near perfect energy efficiency rating converting between 98% and 99% of the fuel into heat.
Finally, the ultimate goal to move more business in and out of your shop is to get the cars to dry faster. There is actually a two-prong effect to improving drying times; one you make more money by being able to do a higher volume of cars everyday and two the less time spent drying is less energy being used.
Heating your paint booth isn’t the only fuel guzzler. Your paint drying system has a huge effect on your energy costs. If you use a jet drying system like our Accudraft Xcelerator Waterborne Paint Drying System you can potentially cut your energy consumption in half.
So far we have just covered the basics. At Accudraft Paint Booths we have many products that will help you save energy when you use your paint booth and will result in a much more productive shop.
Whether you find more savings from our jet drying systems or you were able to slash your fuel budget by upgrading with a new EnergySmart VFD or you did a combination of them all, you are sure to see big savings almost immediately.
Today’s regulatory environment is proving that energy efficiency is soon going to be a requirement for businesses of all different sorts and the automotive industry is no different. Already energy smart ideas are driving new areas of innovation in our paint booth designs here at Accudraft Paint Booths. Contact us now for more information on products and pricing.
