DO NOT USE THE SPACE BAR TO FLIP STACKED WALLS!!!

[wommack]

I just found out that sweeps on stacked walls switch sides when the Break Up command is used on the wall. This happens if the wall was "flipped" when the wall was placed to reverse the finish side.

It also FUBARs the Wall Joins tool.

DON'T FLIP STACKED WALLS!!!!

[patricks]

Yet another reason why I don't use stacked walls. They're generally a PITA and more trouble than they're worth IMHO.

[twiceroadsfool]

Better Plan: Dont use the Break Up Command on stacked walls, lol. No way id work without them, to be sure. :)

[patricks]

knew Aaron would make a pro-stacked post in here pretty soon. ;)

But, what if you start out with them, and as the design progresses, you discover that you need to do things that are beyond the limit of stacked walls, and so you need to change to separate wall types?

[wommack]

If you dont' break stacked walls up they don't merge with floors well.

[twiceroadsfool]

knew Aaron would make a pro-stacked post in here pretty soon. ;)

But, what if you start out with them, and as the design progresses, you discover that you need to do things that are beyond the limit of stacked walls, and so you need to change to separate wall types?

Such as? Maybe ive been lucky, but ive rarely had the need to break up a wall, save for a few facades that carried back over roof structures that needed Base Attachments.

Ive never had a reason to have to *across the board* switch off from the stacked walls...

[3dway]

I'm digging up this post because I'm heading into a new project and I need to decide if I'm going to use stacked walls.

My question is when to use them, and when not to use them.

I'm working in custom residential primarily.

The architect often designs the following in his buildings:
stone>stucco>siding
stone>stucco
stone>siding
All presented from foundation up.

So, generally there is a stone skirt which jumps up and down as you go around the building.
There may be any of stucco, siding, or some kind of prefinished panel over the stone, and used in in any combination.

Often there will be stone with a panel of siding over it beside stone with stucco over it, and the stucco continues up to the storey above and then runs over the siding panel beside it. I may also have any stacked wall type with any variety of stone heights or variable heights for either material above it.

How do you guys deal with this? Do you have to make a new stacked wall type for each.

I have in the past found stacked walls to be a PITA because when you want to change something, you have to go look up which plain walls are in it, then go modify the plain wall type that you need to, and if the change is some small oddball permutation of the original, you have to make not only a new plain wall, but another new stacked wall.

Thanks for any tips.

[travismv702230]

knew Aaron would make a pro-stacked post in here pretty soon. ;)

But, what if you start out with them, and as the design progresses, you discover that you need to do things that are beyond the limit of stacked walls, and so you need to change to separate wall types?

Like I just found out where I can't track Stacked Walls in a material takeoff... Arrgh. Fortunately, I don't have too many of them. Otherwise, I liked the stacked wall solution.

[Scott Womack]

The materials inside of the individual pieces of walls in the "Stack" will be tracked by the Material Take-off schedule for walls.

[travismv702230]

The materials inside of the individual pieces of walls in the "Stack" will be tracked by the Material Take-off schedule for walls.

Does this mean that in the material takeoff then the Stacked Wall shows up as the two (or more) walls that create the stacked wall?

The stacked wall in it's properties dialog doesn't have an instance parameter for comments like a basic wall does. How does one get around that?

[Scott Womack]

I work on larger college structures, and so do not try to "track" individual walls. We have defined a series of materials, such as sstuds, and interior metal studs, etc. to better define what appears in a material take-off. I'm not sure why, if you are trying to figure out the amount of drywall, why you'd need to know how much is in the upper portion of a stacked wall?

[travismv702230]

I'm having to figure out the percentage of brick vs. siding on each of the exterior facades. I explained it better in another thread: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=116730 (posts #10 and #12)

[mmonty1269]

I'm still interested in the solution for this situation....(or did I miss it!?!?)


I'm digging up this post because I'm heading into a new project and I need to decide if I'm going to use stacked walls.

My question is when to use them, and when not to use them.

I'm working in custom residential primarily.

The architect often designs the following in his buildings:
stone>stucco>siding
stone>stucco
stone>siding
All presented from foundation up.

So, generally there is a stone skirt which jumps up and down as you go around the building.
There may be any of stucco, siding, or some kind of prefinished panel over the stone, and used in in any combination.

Often there will be stone with a panel of siding over it beside stone with stucco over it, and the stucco continues up to the storey above and then runs over the siding panel beside it. I may also have any stacked wall type with any variety of stone heights or variable heights for either material above it.

How do you guys deal with this? Do you have to make a new stacked wall type for each.

I have in the past found stacked walls to be a PITA because when you want to change something, you have to go look up which plain walls are in it, then go modify the plain wall type that you need to, and if the change is some small oddball permutation of the original, you have to make not only a new plain wall, but another new stacked wall.

Thanks for any tips.

[dwebber]

Exactly. You have to make a new stacked wall type for each variation on height of stone, combination of materials, etc.

Or else, and it's not something I would do in my situation, but you could do a back up wall type and then do seperate walls for each cladding. It depends on how big your building is and how often you expect it to change. If you only ever have to do it once it might be an acceptable solution. You could then use edit the cladding walls profile to suit the design, which again is a decision would have to make depending on your situation. Doing these things creates problems down the line if you have to make sweeping design changes. I have heard of contractors building models this way for material take-off purposes, but they don't normally have to deal with designs changing on a weekly/daily basis.

If you make a large number of stacked wall types, you would then just have to switch types and lengths to change your elevations.

Hope that helps.

[3dway]

I did (tried to do) a reno project once where we tore the siding off the house, and re-clad it. I tried to do just the cladding as one wall against a stud wall from drywall to sheathing. It was rather difficult. I wonder if it was because I was new to Revit (brand spanking new) or if I tried to do it again (being just kind of new to Revit) if it would be as difficult.

[cphubb]

Given the bugs, crashes and cleanup problems we have experienced with stacked walls in the past we long ago stopped using them and have never gone back.

For exterior walls we know are going to have a "stacked" design we use a curtain wall and assign the different walltypes as the panels for the curtain wall. This not only allows us to stack the walls but also to add vertical splits using the curtain grids. To "Breakup" just remove the curtain grid and you wall becomes one.

We have also see issues with tagging stacked wall sub walls and we avoid this as well using the curtain wall system.

For walls where we need a quick split instance we just use the split tool and change the upper or lower wall as needed. Since the split locks together it makes the alteration pretty easy and simple.


I worked with someone who used all stacked walls in 2008 and could not get ANY walls to cleanup whether or not they touched a stacked wall or not. We ended up sending the file to support where we were told it was corrupted beyond help. We use cut and paste to move the good elements to another clean file and recreated the exterior using curtain walls. Took 2 days but corrected the problem. So no stacked walls here till someone can prove to me the issues are resolved.

[twiceroadsfool]

Using Curtain Walls for exteriors is all good and well, as long as you dont mind your 3rd party apps and downstream programs taking off..... Curtain Walls. Walls can go in place of curtain panels, but theyre "not entirely" walls at that point, its a slippery slope.

Meanwhile, ive had Stacked walls in every file (literally) that ive touched since 2006, with nary a corruption issue. Wall Joins are difficult- but no more than Revit wall joins in general.

Id be hesitant to think that corruption was definetely linked to those walls BEING stacked, and not due to something else. Correlation =/= causation, and so on.

But theyre not for everyone. :)

[cphubb]

In the case I mentioned support highly suggested that that was the cause and we should look at reducing the amount of stacked walls and they would "forward the case to the developers for future improvement." Still have seen numerous cases of problems with cleanups in files that have stacked walls.

None of our downstream applications have any issue with our curtain wall assembiles. We check off the use panel as wall vs. a panel and they go to NW, Solibri, WinEst, QTO and Synchro. What downstream applications are you using where they do not work?

[twiceroadsfool]

In retrospect, im going to have to gather some more information, because i just tried it as a test. From what i heard, its a few apps that out Estimators are using, and the issue was that they take off the various Partition types in Length, and go from there. I think there are certain parameters that are there with walls that dont show up with walls as curtain panels, but i do admit ill have to ask them for more information when im in their office next week, because i see Length showing up as the CW/Wall panels. Ill get more information today and report back.

Regardless though, im awfully concerned that support said that. Ive got a model thats 500,00 SF... Virtually all stacked walls. All varying types too. (Note: Im not listing project size and scope to say its a good thing, but im talking literally... 50 or 60 stacked wall definitions, and hundreds upon hundreds of walls).

I guess if they say dont use them, and you dont like them, then its kind of a no brainer. But ive done a FEW large scale projects with tons of stacked wall definitions and instances, without much of an issue.

Of course, even in house here they hate them, so i seem to be the only person i know who likes them. LOL :)

[cphubb]

Aaron,

Yes let me know if you see any downstream applications that choke on the CW method. Navis used to but was fixed last year.

Again on the corruption issue it was 2008. I have not heard anything our of Adesk to suggest any bugs/updates were done to stacked walls since then so I am being cautious and assuming they are still buggy. Plus they still cause cleanup issues and generally like the rest of your firm people think they are a good idea till they actually use them.

[twiceroadsfool]

I guess thats where my hangup is. Ive used them in every version since 8.1.... And havent had problems. After having talked with the people internally here, im convinced their troubles were the tool itself. But we all prefer to use Revit in different ways. :)