Using a Wall for a Structural Footing

[rmcelvain.103137]

Hi,

I've got a situation that is pretty typical. There's an 8" CMU foundation wall running alongside and existing foundation wall. For the footing I want and upside down L.

I decided to use a stacked wall for the footing; 10" Wide x 1'-0" Tall wall for the lower portion and 16" Wide wall for the upper portion.

My 1st question is about the approach, is there a better way?
My 2nd question is how do I get just those walls to have the hidden linetype.

Am I making this harder than it ought to be or what :mrgreen: ?

[Paul Andersen]

My 1st question is about the approach, is there a better way?I won't call this approach better but it does have some cleanup and display advantages. I used an in place family. I set the workplane of the sweep to be the bottom of the wall so it will travel with any bottom of wall height adjustments. Since its Family Category is set to Structural Foundations it displays like and cleans up with other foundation elements in your model. You can also constrain the endpoints of sweep's path to the ends of the walls so it will adjust with any changes made to the wall length. Try adjusting the length of the wall on the left end of the attached example and the foundation will go along for the ride. On the other end I locked the sweeps path to the outside edge of the other walls foundation. You can try changing the wall foundation type to the alternate size and see that the custom wall foundation will adjust accordingly. The partial slab in the example is only there to show that the custom wall foundation displays correctly in plan view.



My 2nd question is how do I get just those walls to have the hidden linetype.Can't think of anything right now other than the linework tool.

[rmcelvain.103137]

Paul,

Thanks for the reply. The In-Place Family idea was something I had considered and I like the constraints you've come up with. It's interesting that you mention the Linework Tool. I couldn't seem to get it to have any effect; I'm wondering if it's because it's a stacked wall? I'm going to investigate that bit a little later on once I've freed up a bit.

Thanks again,

[Paul Andersen]

Hey Rick, I had a very quick play with your approach and the linework tool and it didn't quite work as I had invisioned. Should have checked first before suggesting it. But here's what I came up with. In the attached example:

(Linework in Red for clarity)

Wall 1 - No Linework
Wall 2 - Single Click Linework (Hidden) on the 3 Outside Faces
Wall 3 - Single Click Linework (Hidden) on the 3 Outside Faces and Internal Line
Wall 4 - Single Click Linework (Hidden) on the 3 Outside Faces and (Invisible Line) Internal Line

The linework tool seems to work to change the linework of upper stacked wall but is leaving a solid line underneath for the lower stacked wall which in my quick test can only be accessed by applying the linework tool to the internal line representing the opposite face of the lower wall. I tried tab selecting the outside face of the lower wall to apply the linework tool with no luck.

[rmcelvain.103137]

Paul,

Thanks for the clarification. That is strange behavior, how is it that by applying linework to one face of the lower wall it makes the dark line representing the lower portion dissappear?

Just as another test, I added a slab butting up to your Wall 1 (not extending to the end of either wall), the stacked wall under the slab showed up hidden as expected. When I applied a single click linework using hidden, the portion under the slab showed up properly while the portion outside the slab had the double line version (red hidden above black bycategory). I then applied invisible to the face of the lower stack under the wall and both portions (under the slab on outside the slab) showed up with only the hidden red line.

I would really love to see 2 new system families added to revit structure: one for foundations and one for foundation walls.

I like and use the wall footing tool but more and more I think I'd like to have them on their own system family functioning like walls.

The foundation walls system family would make developing foundation plans much easier. I don't know how GAS represents the plans, but here we like to show ALL foundations on the foundation plan sheets. Even if there is a 10 foot difference in the footing elevations (picture a partial basement so that level 1 consists of framing and foundations).

Thanks again,

[Scott Hammond]

Another way to represent the foundation is to use two-slab foundations. They will show up in plan ad Hidden and in section you can join geometry.

See the image below.