Grounding of piers for pipe not containing water

[jay pai1]

We have a project to bring underground piping above the ground. Plan is to support the pipes every 20' via concrete piers with rebar cage. Top of the pier will be 6" above grade, product inside these pipes are not water.

Is there a need to ground the piers (between rebar cage and the support that pipe will sit on)? The literature that I have read pertains to grounding only pipes that contain water.

 

[petersonra]

We have a project to bring underground piping above the ground. Plan is to support the pipes every 20' via concrete piers with rebar cage. Top of the pier will be 6" above grade, product inside these pipes are not water.

Is there a need to ground the piers (between rebar cage and the support that pipe will sit on)? The literature that I have read pertains to grounding only pipes that contain water.

IMO there is a need to ground it (whatever you may mean by that word) if the engineered drawings say to do so, as it is part of the contract requirements. It might not be necessary from a code perspective, but code requirements are not the same thing as contract requirements. For instance, the contract can require that the conduit be painted pink. There is generally no code requirement to paint conduit at all.

As a practical matter, if by "ground" you mean connected to physical earth, the pipe itself is grounded already because it comes out of the ground. So why would you need to "ground" it again. The pipe itself effectively "grounds" the piers.

However, this does not relieve you of any contract requirements unless you can get whomever the contract was made with to agree.

I don't think it makes any difference if there is water in the pipe or not.