Residential Foundations

[davin422936]

I'm a Newbie to the BIM/Revit world and I work in Residential design. What is the general consensus or best practice for making accurate residential slab foundations? When I say accurate I mean so that a wall detail it will show the foundation and the brick ledge properly.

[damon.sidel]

Could you post an example detail to illustrate what condition you wish to document? I think it would make a big difference if it is a slab-on-grade, slab with grade beams, foundation wall, etc.

With that said, assuming you mean something like this http://www.imiweb.org/design_tools/masonry_details/details/01.030.0322.php, then I'd probably go with a foundation wall with two concrete layers, the exterior layer having an adjustable height. You can do this when you edit the wall layers. http://www.revitzone.com/3d-modelling/182-walls-extending-individual-layers You could do this for the foundation wall to make a step and you could do it for the brick wall to have the brick extend down to the ledge while the structure sits at the slab height.

[davin422936]

Here is a detail sample of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm not sure if I should even bother modeling it or just show it on the detail.
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[cdatechguy]

I always like modeling like it was built....so if you have a building section, a wall section or a detail it shows correctly....

So in your case you can create a sweep to add the angle and join to the wall and floor....the cut at the brick can be a sweep void cut from the foundation....

[damon.sidel]

With the angle and the fact that you aren't showing a break between the floor slab and the wall, I'd use a Floor Slab Edge and for the brick wall using the feature I posted about above to bring the brick down below the top of slab.

[david_peterson]

I'd use the beam tool to create the grade beam at the end with the top of the grade beam at the bottom of brick elevation.
Run the slab over the top of the beam to create the ledge your looking for. Add a slab edge to fill in between the beam and the slab. Use the horizontal offset to get it in the correct place. Join them all together so you don't see any joint lines.

[Craig_L]

You absolutely can achieve this level of detail.
With brick and block walls though, even at fine detail and 1:1 scale they will still show a hatched area rather than the individual bricks or blocks.
What I do, is place a 2D element in the view over the block/brick and then hide the wall (or you can leave it there as the detail sits on top of that, but I prefer to have it hidden as personal preference).
I've also seen 2D families for the insulation although I don't use them in my work for now.
The blocks/brick 2D family is stretchable, and adjusts the correct number of blocks + grout as you adjust it.
As for the beam, absolutely achieveable also.
You need to ask the question what level of model is required, do you need the tapered region between the beam and the slab modelled?
If not, you might consider using masking regions & detail lines to achieve the detail.
If so, we use rectangular concrete ground beams, and a seperate beam for the taper (beacuse we don't need to see that in our plans and its easier to filter out if seperate)
If you need to schedule and count the tapered beam, then detail lines are out of the question, if its solely for the detail level of the project, do you really need to model it everywhere to show one detail? Its a question of time saving and efficiency over the project.

I've shown a few instances here for examples, the steelwork is only steel members that have been modelled (and the grids etc) but the blockwork, and cleats are all 2D masking regions, and linework. The live detail has everything you can see (apart from text) modelled. I know it's steel work, but just to show you...

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[davin422936]

Thanks for all of the replies! I'm going to try all of the suggestions and see which way works best for what we are trying to achieve.