Indicating Double Home Runs Correctly in Revit MEP

Revit MEP will allow you to indicate double home runs when circuiting electrical fixtures.  This can be done by simply dragging a home run arrow from one electrical circuit to a fixture that is on a different circuit. The result will show a double arrow head on the home run and the circuit tag will call out both circuits.

Two Single Home Runs

Double Home Run

The one thing that has always bugged me about this is that Revit would also still show the home run arrow head tying the two circuits together.  Every time I taught this, I was asked how do you get rid of the arrow head tying the two circuits together?  Up until today, I did not think you could.  I have now found a way and it is very simple.

All you have to do is to duplicate the plan using the Duplicate with Detailing.

As soon as the plan is duplicated the arrow head goes away.

Double Home Run Without Extra Arrow Head

The only downside is that the duplicated plan must remain in the project.  If the plan goes away then the arrow head comes back.  Weird, but it solves the mystery of how to turn off the unwanted arrow head.

Section Marks in Revit Disappear

Oh No, My Section Marks in Revit Have Disappeared!?

This particular dilemma crops up occasionally. Did some or all section view tags disappear when you changed the scale of the view? Fear not, it is probably not a problem with your view, project or Revit. It is a parameter associated with the section view. When you place a section in a view, it assumes the scale of the view. It also sets the “Hide at scales coarser than” parameter to the same scale. That means if you place sections in a view, then change the scale of that view to be greater than what was originally set to (i.e. your view was set to 1/8”=1’-0” and you change it to 3/32”=1’-0”), your section view tags will disappear. This is a default behavior of section views. To fix this you open the section view, go to the Properties PaletteèHide at scales coarser than parameter and change to allow the section view tags to show at larger scales. This setting is intended to help control the display of section view tags. Sometimes we forget this setting is there until they disappear.

Conduit: With or Without Fittings

Within Revit MEP, we have two different types of Families to choose from for conduit layouts.  The first being "Conduit with Fittings" which will layout the conduit run showing separation lines between fittings and the straights.  The second is "Conduit without Fittings" which does use fittings, but does not designate them out in the layout with the division line.  In the example below you will see the greenish conduit is the "without fittings", and the cyanic conduit is "with fittings".  I used two Filters to get the "look", the first filters on the conduit and conduit fittings that contains the word "without", the second filters on the conduit and fittings that do not contain the word "without".  Notice how the junction boxes always fall into the "with" category.

             

Other than the "looks", there isn't much difference between the two families.  The exception is when we get to schedules.  When you right-click "Schedules/Quantities" in the Project Browser, for conduits you will find selection for Conduit, Conduit Fittings and then Conduit Run.  

In my example below I chose just the "Conduit Run" and then the "Conduit".  Notice that the "Conduit Run" schedule only accessed the "Conduit without Fittings".  The schedule also shows the length of the continuous run that is not interrupted by a junction box.  The second schedule, the "Conduit", lists out both the "with" and the "without", but only gives the actual length of the individual pieces.

 dennis

Navisworks and Revit Worksets

Sorting the objects in Navisworks based on Properties such as System Classification or System Type as assigned by Revit MEP is a common practice.  The sorting is used in Clash resolution as well as Timeliner and for visualization.  However, at times even the System sorting is too ‘comprehensive’ and since the model was organized by Worksets, why not use Worksets then as our Filter property?  Be prepared to analyze your Workset data in Navisworks to determine what the appropriate value to filter will be.  The Navisworks exporter from Revit converts the Workset data to Integer values.  For an example, the default Workset1 “appears” to always come over as the integer <0> (zero).  (NOTE:  I wrote ‘appears’ because, so far, every test I have done it has set the Workset1 to the integer zero.  But I don’t want to say it will do this each and every time, until such time that I am convinced it will.)

For my examples below, I have an NWC written from RMEP with the standard worksets: Shared Levels and Grids –and- Workset1.  While in the Revit model, I created three more worksets: Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing and modeled the systems shown with their respective Workset active.  When I exported the model to Navisworks,

Pipe Systems Creation Methods

With the release of RMEP 2012, the workflow for creating Pipe Systems has taken on two different processes. The same is true for the HVAC systems as well, but we will be focusing on the Pipe Systems. The original process took us through selecting a fixture, then Create/Edit/Add to the system. The 2012 new process lets us create by duplication of the existing Pipe Systems and renaming them to the name we want. I will refer to these two methods as: 1) Create systems through selection –and- 2) Create systems through duplication. In my examples below I will be working with the Domestic Cold Water System specifically, but the process is the same for the other Pipe Systems as well.

The picture above shows the first method, Systems by Selection. The two restroom layouts are on separate Domestic Cold Water system names: DCW1 for the first floor and DCW2 for the second floor. The two system names are listed separately in the Flow Schedule and are ‘child systems’ of the Domestic Cold Water within the System Browser.