In California, it is against the law to use plastic,PVC, for air lines. Black steel or galvanized steel pipe is legal.
Remember, the piping also acts as air storage, so the more pipe, the bigger your "tank". The larger your tank, the less the thing will fire off to recharge.
We have a sixty gallon compressor that has it's own small, vented room. It has been soundproofed with Celotex ( spelling?) and diamond cut foam. The compressor is sitting on four by fours suspended a few inches above a concrete floor. It is mounted to the four by fours using rubber shock cushions on the bolts. We have the bleed handle underneath the compressor, so this makes it easy to bleed.
We used a auto type rubber hose that connects the compressor to the steel air lines, this absorbs the vibration so the whole system isn't shaking when it's recharging.
When you install your airlines, be sure to have your hose connectors facing up wards. This will help to keep water out of your hoses. Also connect a few three inch pipes with a bleeder at your low points to collect water. You should bleed your air system about once a week. In our shop, if it happens once every couple of months, it's a miracle.
You should also have water filters and regulators at each hose connection. This may save a customers picture.
We had a fire sprinkler company hook up all our steel airlines when we first set up our shop. The cost was surprisingly cheap, only a few hundred dollars, four if I remember correctly. They used one inch steel pipe and all the proper pipe hangers and connections. We never have to worry about our air system.
At my old shop, I used PVC, it was a bad idea. We had the pipe explode twice in eleven years. It is very loud, sounds like a shotgun going off. It sprays water everywhere, very dangerous to people around it, and customers pictures. I was lucky, nothing bad came of it except a mess to clean up.
It does not matter how big or small a compressor you have. It is a good idea to have all the associated air lines and hook ups done properly.
Our compressor is an expensive auto garage type compressor that will re-charge our system in a few minutes. When we first hooked it up, we could not use it due to the electrical inspector and our 220 electrical.
We had to use a little ten gallon home compressor hooked into the steel pipe system, that was designed for a five horsepower, sixty gallon compressor. It worked just fine for about three months while we got approval for our 220 electrical. The little sucker took about fifteen minutes to charge the system, but it never broke down.
John
