[jimvette59]

Originally Posted by Tom Wesenberg

If you don't drain your air tank, there will be a BIG BANG.

I posted this a few years ago, but there are several new members here. I was in my basement working on the computor when I heard and felt an explosion. I went outside to see what happened, and found my neighbor standing in his driveway looking like he was in a state of shock. He was using his air compressor to blow the grass off his lawn mower when the air tank blew up.

He had a garage full of Harleys and expensive cars and only about 6 feet by 6 feet of open floor space. He had his compressor mounted up on a shelf about 6 feet off the floor. When it blew it knocked the outside lights off the garage wall, blew the shelf away and the compressor landed on the only open space left. He was lucky, but the cars and Harleys were all splattered with rusty water and oil slime.

He gave me what was left of the compressor, and I could see the rusty water line about half way up the tank. I also saw a sheet metal screw sticking inside the tank. Apparently a couple years earlier the tank had sprung a leak through a rust hole so he plugged that hole with a sheet metal screw and kept using the compressor and kept on NEVER draining the water.

The tank does not look like it blew out because of rust. It looks like the tank could not hold the pressure that it was subjected to and yes the rust could have contributed to the explosion. I would like to see the blow off or any safety features on the unit. JMHO