Graphic solution at fire rated walls.

[dgraue]

I thought I'd share this possible solution...

We have been using the "tape" method of graphically showing fire rated walls. We used the hatch patterns some of you posted for 1 and 2 HR walls which works very well typically. A problem we ran into was on large multi-family projects with many unit types. We Group unit types (ie: UPN A1, UPN B3, etc.) and the corridor walls are usually grouped with the unit, so as the plans are adjusted through the design phases the entry doors and their wall recesses can be adjusted acordinigly. The corridor walls are typically 1 HR rated walls. Now, Units don't always line up nicely across the hall from one another and as the building gets divided up by 2 HR Area Separation Walls, there are portions of the corridor wall running along Units that need to have a 2 HR rating. Since this is an a-typical condition and does not occur at every UPN B3 (for instance) how do you change the wall and it's rating without creating another group?

One way we've devised is to create a "Stacked Wall" for the Corridor Wall where the lower portion is a 1 HR wall structure (with the 1 HR fire hatch) and the upper portion is a 2 HR wall structure (with 2 HR fire hatch). Typically a "View Range" is set to 4'-0", so we split the corridor wall at 4'-6" and put a "Plan Region" set to 5'-0" around that "a-typical" 2 HR corridor condition. We actually end up faking the 2 HR portion of the wall by making it the same thickness as the 1 HR wall...otherwise our corridor walls would show a difference in thickness in each building section. Since these 2 HR jogs are typically short runs to the next demising wall, we can live with the fact that the width is not correct here as long as the fire rating tape reads correctly.

I have attached an example rvt file. Take a look and if you have any other ideas on this solution, please share.

DG

[Mr Spot]

What's wrong with filters for showing fire ratings? Isn't this one of the reasons they were implemented?

[dgraue]

What's wrong with filters for showing fire ratings? Isn't this one of the reasons they were implemented?

It's a graphics issue. The fire tape method uses a drafting fill pattern which is associated to the stud layer in the wall's makeup. You then select the stud "material" and apply the fill pattern to it's cut pattern. Filters do not allow you to switch out fill patterns within a wall's makeup and we don't want to switch out an entire wall type. We are only looking to change the rating for a short run of the wall's length and since this wall is part of a group the wall type can't be switched out without affecting the group.

[dbaldacchino]

This whole fire-rating issue needs to be better handled than using cut hatches in my opinion. I don't like the use of hatches, because I want to be able to use solid hatched walls (whether black, white or grey) for presentation reasons. It should be as simple as selecting a rating instance parameter value within the wall and then you would set up a fire rating plan. Depending on what rating it is, the walls display with the appropriate graphic representation. I would like all this to be built-in and making use of user assigned annotation families or something similar for each different rating, in order to take care of regional/cultural/office standards differences. But right now I'm resorting to the old fire tape method. I built one detail component line-based family with arrays and all the rating types are controlled from within it with visibility parameters (wall to deck non-rated, 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr). Then I just turn my view to coarse detail, set my cut hatch to white, select the detail component tool in the drafting Tab and use the pick lines to select the wall centerline. And pick your merry way until you're done.....the only drawback at the moment is that this doesn't work with curves. I'll build one later to handle curves....or perhaps I'll use the railing tool YET AGAIN for something other than a railing

[dgraue]

This whole fire-rating issue needs to be better handled than using cut hatches in my opinion. I don't like the use of hatches, because I want to be able to use solid hatched walls (whether black, white or grey) for presentation reasons. It should be as simple as selecting a rating instance parameter value within the wall and then you would set up a fire rating plan. Depending on what rating it is, the walls display with the appropriate graphic representation. I would like all this to be built-in and making use of user assigned annotation families or something similar for each different rating, in order to take care of regional/cultural/office standards differences. But right now I'm resorting to the old fire tape method. I built one detail component line-based family with arrays and all the rating types are controlled from within it with visibility parameters (wall to deck non-rated, 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr). Then I just turn my view to coarse detail, set my cut hatch to white, select the detail component tool in the drafting Tab and use the pick lines to select the wall centerline. And pick your merry way until you're done.....the only drawback at the moment is that this doesn't work with curves. I'll build one later to handle curves....or perhaps I'll use the railing tool YET AGAIN for something other than a railing

Agreed. This needs to be addressed to allow for different office standards.
We assign a solid fill cut pattern to the wall material in object styles, so by default in a coarse detail view we have poched walls. It is when we set the detail view to medium that we see the fire-rating hatch. If the wall is assigned a fire-rating, we should have graphic control to be able to show that as needed. I don't like the idea of re-tracing the walls in order to show the fire rating like we did in autocad.

[Matt Brennan]

Hey DG,

Awesome tip by the way. This is the same look that ADT does when you use the F.R.R. tool. Do you think you could please post the hatches you used?

Again a great tip!!!

[mcox.157847]

It would make since to me that sonce we can create line styles, that one should be able to assign that linestyle to an interior wall definition for the fire taping. The problem is that functions are there, but can't be asssigned the way we need them to be.

We should simply get the Appearance tab for Cut Pattern to allow the option for line style to use.

[mbeham]

Ok so i've been using the tape method and created new custom patterns that work excellent in Revit 2008. However when i export that drawing to AutoCAD 2008 my patterns go crazy. The horizontal ones work well when they show up. I say when the show up because some of them dont. The vertical ones show as a single line pattern, and if you put them on an angle they show up but are not correct because the spacings are thrown off between the lines. I even tried to download the patterns that were posted on here and they do the same thing. Any one have any ideas to what would cause this.

[mzabritski]

mbetham,

Not sure why they do it, but ours do the same thing. The solution we use is to load the same pattern into Autocad as a hatch. Then go into the exported AutoCAD file, select the broken hatches and change the hatch type to the Autocad version of the same hatch. You also have to change the scale. At least the rotation angle displays correctly. Its a few extra steps, but at least it comes out OK in the end. The biggest challenge is that all the patterns (1 hour, 2 hour, smoke. etc..) come in one the same layer and there is no easy way to select all of certain type.

[sradley]

Does anyone have a 4 Hour.pat file?