Grounded Fermenters?

[indyspirits]

We're getting pushback from our insurance carrier that our fermenters should be bonded to our facilitiy's ground loop. Has anyone else been asked to do that?   

 

 

[Hudson bay distillers]

our stills and mash tun are grounded but thats just because our son and partner is an electrician . the stills makes sense to me and the mash tun he wanted grounded because of it being close to the stills . the wash backs dont have a grounding wire as i dont see a static spark risk . 

tim 

[captnKB]

Our FD required us to ground all tanks holding spirits. We put a simple bolt in the concrete that hit rebar and attached to a ground wire from the tanks to the bolt.

[bluefish_dist]

Did not have to ground out fermenters as they only hold "beer" which the fd essentially considers water.  All tanks/containers for spirits needed grounding and bonding.  

[indyspirits]

6 hours ago, bluefish_dist said:

Did not have to ground out fermenters as they only hold "beer" which the fd essentially considers water.

Please stop, you're applying logic! Our local insurance carrier requested that we ground our fermenters. I tried to explain they contained less than 10% etoh. Fortunately we ran a grounding loop around the perimeter of our facility and it took only $20 in claps & copper to ground them. Thank goodness.  Disaster averted.  ?

 

 

[Dehner Distillery]

I could see it only if it only because you could maybe have a mixer on there, so no one gets shocked, or maybe something goes crazy somewhere else and the cooling waterer just water gets electrified it would again stop someone from getting shocked. Depends on how your cooling water or water is set up you could create "transient current" unknowingly.

Grounding and bonding is just to easy to do.

[frost021]

going from past knowledge I'm a little rusty and more familiar with CEC rules ...yes you do want to Bond any Metal non electrical components I think it has to do more with static better to be Safe than sorry 

[nabtastic]

If I'm understanding this correctly, bonding=stronger version of grounding?  At some point it becomes overkill, but basically anything electronic or metal that can touch liquid gets a ground or bond?  Are there XP requirements for these connections?  I'm guessing no, but I'm neither an electrician or an engineer. 

[Thatch]

A good explanation from Wiki and how it might apply to a fermenter

Electrical bonding is the practice of intentionally electrically connecting all exposed metallic items not designed to carry electricity in a room or building as protection from electric shock. If a failure of electrical insulation occurs, all bonded metal objects in the room will have substantially the same electrical potential, so that an occupant of the room cannot touch two objects with significantly different potentials. Even if the connection to a distant earth ground is lost, the occupant will be protected from dangerous potential differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_bonding