General arrangement / Piping Plans

My take on it.

If you are doing Equipment Arrangements / Layouts, then yes, you may want include these areas, as they will likely be used as the background for other disciplines.

When doing piping drawings / layouts, I'd say you don't include these areas.
Piping plans should include the area covered by piping.
Piping plans are done as a scale (1:33 1/3 or 1:25 etc) that are generally not much use to other disciplines.

Now that most projects are run in a 3D environment, all the information should be there for other disciplines to create their own drawings.

If you take it to it's logical onclusion: If you have to show a blank piping drawing, because electrical, for example, would like to see the area, then if follows that electrical will need to produce drawings for areas with no electrical, HVAC will have to produce drawings for areas with no HVAC, etc., ect.,

Seems like an awful waste of time, resources, money & paper.

**EDIT**

You may want to ask yourself:

What is the piping scope for the project?
Do you have hours in your budget to produce drawings for other disciplines?
Is this purely because these drawings were included in a deliverables list?

LSG,
First we should clear up the terminology.
There are:
"A" - Piping only areas. Where there is only piping (piping manifolds, control valve stations, metering stations, pig launchers/receivers, pipe racks, sleeper ways, etc.). Piping plans must fully detail all the piping in these areas and show enough detail of all other fixed objects (pipe supports/sleepers, security fences/gates, light standards, etc) in order to define clearances for operator and maintenance access.

"B" - Piping & piping related equipment areas. Where there are all manner of equipment such as exchangers, heaters, pumps, tanks, vessels, etc along with the piping. Piping Plans must fully detail all the piping in these areas and show enough detail of all equipment and other fixes objects (pipe supports/sleepers, electrical junction boxes, switch gear, local Instrument panels, starter stations etc) in order to define clearances for operator and maintenance access.

"C" - Non-piping areas or non-piping related areas. Where there are transformers, switch gear, warehouses, office buildings, machine shops. Piping would normally not provide piping plans for these areas unless piping is responsible for plumbing. In that case minimal strip drawings could be produces to define the routing, valving and support (if above ground) for the domestic services systems. Coverage of all these areas is not required.

"D" - Plot Plans - Piping is normally responsible for producing the Plot Plan Drawings for the project. Plot Plans may be multiple, an overall with individual Area/Unit Plot Plan drawings. Plot Plans shall show every object that is existing and planned for the new facility.

You wrote: "Other piping designers I have worked with have told me that GA's / piping plans only capture piping, as other disciplines will have there own layout plans."
This may be a misunderstanding on the part of someone. Somewhere there must be one model or drawing to define what is occupying space. If an object is in a piping dominate area then you should show it on the Plot plan and on the detail piping plan.

p.s.: I do not use the term "GA"