'Rated' wall style

[Dimitri Harvalias]

In the dark days, when I used AutoCAD, I had developed a quick method of graphically illustrating wall ratings (for submission of code compliance drawings to local building authorities) using special linetype polylines as part of defined wall styles. (See attached jpeg) A single dash would represent a 1 hour wall, a dash dot would be 1.5 hours, two dashes 2 hours etc.
The only method I have come up with in Revit is to use different hatch patterns for the walls to represent different ratings. This is nuisance because I then have to define separate materials for rated wood studs, rated concrete block etc. if I want them shown graphically instead of tagging them.
I have had no trouble defining the new line style, I am just wondering if a line can be part of a defined wall style. It would obviously have to be included as a Membrane Layer so it would add no thickness to the wall. Ideally it could be tied to the Rating property of the wall style so no matter what the wall assembly was composed of, it would have the line embedded in the center of the wall.

[beegee]

A single line can't be part of a defined wall style, but a fill pattern can.

I assume you are using fill patterns, calling them 1 hour fill, 2 hour fill etc. Then defining new materials called 1 hour, 2 hour etc and assigning the fill patterns to the cut pattern of the material. Then defining your wall types so that, say a I hour fire rated stud wall is made from a core material called 1 hour. It can still have finishes shown around the core.
When drawn, the wall will display the correct fill pattern for different stud widths and graphically represents the fire rating.

May take a little setting up, but once done you're got the result you wanted ( ? )

[jbalding48677]

How about using the course fill pattern? 1 hour could be grey, 1.5 red, 2 blue and plot in color. Or use different hatch patterns in black and white.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I have been using the coarse fill pattern as well as material fills. Using color isn't an option because most municipalities around here won't accept color for record docs because they can't reproduce them cheaply for their own records.
The hatch pattern method has been OK to this point, I was just hoping there might be a way to do it with lines.
I did experiment with creating a fill pattern that reflected the same thing as the line, (solid, void, solid etc) and that worked until I tried to draw a wall that turned a corner! Solid filled wall anyone? Maybe if the hatch pattern origin changed based on the direction the wall was drawn? Just a thought.
Thanks

[ACE001]

Has anyone come up with a lined method that is ideal? I'm really surprised this is taking so long to get into Revit, if it hasn't already.
I can't find any reference in 2009 about fire rating annotation.
Standard architectural requirements they are.

Fill patterns
hand drawn & manually coordinated lines
Membrane visibility overrides
Analytical model overrides
this is the fill pattern system we used, but it is not ideal.
http://www.irevit.com/images/Storage/12PM.png

[nweeks]

I don't know if this is "ideal," but I wasn't happy with the use of filters because fire ratings didn't look the same from one view scale to another(as the wall gets smaller the ratings are illegible).

The method I came up with was to draw model lines on a reference plane called "level 1 fire rating" - which is at the cut line for level 1(+4'-0") and thus not obscured by model elements. I lock the line to the centerline of the wall so the rating moves when the line moves. I set lineweight 16 to be the same at all drawing scales and set the fire rating linestyles to weight 16. This solved the problem of lines looking different in views of differing scale.

This method is only used on projects requiring the ratings be shown in multiple views. If they only need to be shown on life safety plans, detail/symbolic lines seem to be the way to go.

[twiceroadsfool]

We use the filter method described in other threads. The information is already there, in the walls. I dont want team members spending time manually drafting lines and ticker tapes or whatever else, only to have to chase them around when the design changes.

The filters arent ideal, but weve never been able to not get them to work for us...

[mbeham]

The one problem we had at our company with the "dash dot" system is that it is not NCS standard. We utilize filters to change the color of the walls, Red for Fire and Purple for smoke (since it matched our other program standard) this is to make sure the lines are all assigned to the right walls, then created a repeating detail line that is NCS compliant. It isnt perfect, the wall is rated to the correct rating and built to match standard, but the actual line code is just a 2D compliant line that can be locked to the center of the wall...i've attached a few examples of the repeating details.

[jlinger]

I've had some success with the rated wall hatch somebody posted on augi ages ago. It is a series of vertical lines and spaces. If you use that material hatch to define the core of a three layer structure (say 2.5" CMU / 3" Rated Material / 2.5" CMU = 8" Nominal Rated CMU wall) you can use Linework to erase the lines left between the Core Layers. I had to create a 'white' Linetype with a color of 254-254-254 because it wouldn't allow me to make them Invisible Lines.

I'll post images as soon as can get them to upload.

[tomnewsom]

Fire Rating is a builtin parameter of the wall object. We use filters to override the display of walls to solid fill colours in a coarse plan for code drawings. Works pretty well, but isn't as good looking as the old dashed lines.

[rholguin]

Yes,
best results is in using the filters. this helps when showing the same type of profile for exsiting wall as light lines... and Demo Dashed darker lines, and New Poche with fill paterns.