Use the total airflow requirement and estimate the amount of time a maximum air capacity will be needed.
Air compressor storage tank sizing.
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.
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.
Sizing an air compressor requires a logical sequence of steps to determine the proper amount of air for the application.
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.
For most applications it makes sense to have a combination of wet and dry storage.
Here is a quick sheet showing the air compressor horsepower average cfm or output and recommended tank size.
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.
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.
For example if you have a total of 1 200 gallons of compressed air storage 800 gallons should be dry storage and 400 gallons should be wet.
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.
So the minimum air required is 300 cubic feet.
The ideal ratio of compressed air storage is 1 3 wet to 2 3 dry capacity.
Air tanks how large should i size my air tank.