how to make a dormer

[CAD Student]

I am making something similar to a dormer as you can see from the picture... i clicked on the wall and i clicked on attach and selected "bottom" and then clicked on the roof and it trimmed the wall to the roof and it was beautiful until i zoomed in close and saw this gap.. How do i fix it?

I am in a class and following handouts to learn how to use revit and thats what this project is for. The instructions say make sure the walls extend far enough into the roof to avoid holes then "see video V5-C for more on this topic" but i dont know where this video is?

[Dave Jones]

I am making something similar to a dormer as you can see from the picture... i clicked on the wall and i clicked on attach and selected "bottom" and then clicked on the roof and it trimmed the wall to the roof and it was beautiful until i zoomed in close and saw this gap.. How do i fix it?

I am in a class and following handouts to learn how to use revit and thats what this project is for. The instructions say make sure the walls extend far enough into the roof to avoid holes then "see video V5-C for more on this topic" but i dont know where this video is?

you need to ask your Instructor where the video V5-C is

[CAD Student]

I would love to but i believe my instructor is incompetent. I dont think he knows how to use revit. If you ask him any questions he says "just try to understand the basics and skip over the details." So that pretty much makes it a self study class... However, i would like to strive to be an expert which i only feel i can do by learning the details... i have taken classes in Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD 2D and 3D, Pro E, Catia, Sketch up, and Solid Works... but Revit is kind of a different animal... Having a little trouble learning it...

[Dave Jones]

... but Revit is kind of a different animal... Having a little trouble learning it...

you and me both brother! Sorry that I can't help with the dormer but I'm a beginner also. There are many really knowledgeable folks here though. Hopefully one of them can get you going in the right direction

[Alfredo Medina]

I would love to but i believe my instructor is incompetent. I dont think he knows how to use revit. If you ask him any questions he says "just try to understand the basics and skip over the details."

That is not a good answer, coming from any instructor, precisely because it creates that feeling that you have now as his student, that "he is incompetent", making you lose your confidence in him and your motivation in the class. If the question does apply to the current topic and the instructor does not know the answer, he should simply say honestly that he doesn't know yet, but he will try to find out and have an answer for a future session, and motivate the student to find out by himself as well. If the answer is found later, it will be a joy for both the instructor and the student to share the solution. But just saying "just try to understand the basics and skip over the details" kills the students' natural curiosity and interest. Nobody can know everything about any software, but we all can learn together, especially if both the instructor and the student are willing to go beyond the basics.

[chriskline2007]

Sorry to hear you are not getting a lot of help from your instructor. Whenever I get some unexpected results, I try and undo a few steps to see if the condition existing a bit earlier and I just didn't notice it along the way. Did that gap exist before you attempted to attach the exterior walls to the roof? Either way, try using the join roof tool to get both roofs to "seam" together. That may fix the gap.

Just curious, but are the ghost-looking planes actually walls that you have temporarily hidden for the purpose of illustrating your problem? You could also try removing the wall attachment to the roof, then extending the walls (in plan view) below the dormer roof towards the main building, until they join the adjacent walls, and then try to attach them to the dormer roof again.

[CAD Student]

That is not a good answer, coming from any instructor...


I have had lots of Instructors... good ones and bad ones... I have over 200 college credits... I love to learn... I love CAD... I take the classes because I want to learn... and I don’t expect my professor to know all the in's and outs of revit... but it literally appears that he has never even seen revit before or AutoCAD... and those are the only 2 programs I have ever asked him questions about... But for example, when I first started to learn how to use revit, the directions on the handouts said I could draw a wall any size and change the dimensions later... just like lots of modern CAD software... so later, I did what made since, I clicked on the wall to change the dimension and I couldn't... so obviously dimensions in Revit are different than in Inventor (which I am pretty good at)... So I asked the teacher how to do dimensions in revit... he didn’t say he didn’t know... but it was pretty obvious he didn’t know... and he just said something like don’t worry about it... work on learning everything else... just get the basics...

I mean I think that is pretty basic? and pretty important?

[CAD Student]

...Whenever I get some unexpected results, I try and undo a few steps to see if the condition existing a bit earlier and I just didn't notice it along the way.

Did that gap exist before you attempted to attach the exterior walls to the roof?

Either way, try using the join roof tool to get both roofs to "seam" together.
That may fix the gap.

Just curious, but are the ghost-looking planes actually walls that you have temporarily hidden for the purpose of illustrating your problem?

You could also try removing the wall attachment to the roof, then extending the walls (in plan view) below the dormer roof towards the main building, until they join the adjacent walls, and then try to attach them to the dormer roof again.


I noticed the gap right off... and I "undo" and I try, try, and try again... I try different things...

I have already tried the join tool a few times but I haven’t had any luck with it... I don’t know if I am doing it wrong or what...

The "ghost-looking planes are actually glass... it’s a 3 story glass atrium that is part of the main entrance... it was made using a curtain wall...

I am not sure what your last instruction is suggesting for me to try... but I feel I should try to clarify what I was instructed to do via the instructions and what I did that the instructions didn’t tell me to do...

Open ex 4-4.rvt and save as ex5-1.rvt

Open south elevation view

Select home->Datum->Level tool

Draw a level datum at the top of the exterior wall at elevation 36'

Change the label from level 4 to T.O. Masonry (T.O. means "Top Of")

Click yes when prompted to rename corresponding views

Open the newly created T.O. Masonry Floor Plan view

Select home->build->roof

Select "Roof by footprint"

Change slope to 6"/12"

Then make the main "big" roof

Then make the roof over the stair shafts on each end of the building...

Next you will create a roof over the atrium area. We want a 4' high aluminum panel above the curtain wall, thus pushing the atrium roof up higher. You will need to create a new wall type for the aluminum panels.

Switch to the T.O. Masonry view

It gives the specs for the wall style

Then it says draw three walls, so their exterior faces align with the exterior face of the curtain wall below. Be sure to use snaps and set the wall height to 4'

The walls running north-south need to extend far enough back into the main roof to avoid any holes; see video V5-C for more on this topic.

So that all it says... I drew the walls back into the roof... I don’t know if that is what they meant but that what I did... some students did that and just left it that way but then the walls extend down through the roof and are visible inside... that’s not right?

Next it tells me to use the roof tool to select the three walls just drawn using the footprint option "defines slope" checked

Use the line tool to draw a line to close the open side this will create a closed rectangle to complete the roof "defines slope" unchecked

Before finishing the roof, select roof properties and set the base offset from level to 4' this places the roof on top of the 4' high wall you just drew

Select finish roof

Select no for attach wall prompt

Use join/ unjoin roof tool to join the atrium roof to the main roof

So maybe you can follow these steps and help me out...

[CAD Student]

omg!! never mind... later in the lesson i see that i was suppose to just extend the walls into the roof and leave them that way... hanging down below the roof...