Cannot extend layer(s) of the highlighted vertically compound wall

[noah]

Can someone please give me a tutorial on vertically compound walls? I'm getting errors all over the place when I try to attach a wall to my roof. The wall has the exterior sheathing and siding unlocked and extended vertically 8". My roof edge is aligned with the face of core. So the extended layers are supposed to cover the roof edge.

But when I try to attach the walls I get this error...

"Cannot extend layer(s) of the highlighted vertically compound wall"

I also get this when I try to trim two walls together. I've tried making sure the walls are exactly the same with the same top and base extensions, etc. But they just won't trim without giving me the error.

Attached is the roof will a chain of walls. When I tried to attach the walls some attached some didn't and if I select the ones that didn't and hit attach I get the error. Any ideas?

Thanks.

p.s. the only reference I can find to this on the forum is my own earlier post on the same topic. Hasn't anyone ever seen this error before? There must be a rule of thumb that I'm breaking but I don't know what it is.

[Allen Lacy]

Can someone please give me a tutorial on vertically compound walls? I'm getting errors all over the place when I try to attach a wall to my roof. The wall has the exterior sheathing and siding unlocked and extended vertically 8". My roof edge is aligned with the face of core. So the extended layers are supposed to cover the roof edge.

But when I try to attach the walls I get this error...

"Cannot extend layer(s) of the highlighted vertically compound wall"
. If you attach a verically compound wall to a roof, then you can't extend (up or down) the layers. I think that you want to invert which layers you have unlocked, exterior sheathing and finish layers should be locked and the structure, and interior finish layers should be unlocked. Then you can lower the structure and interior finish layers to the underside of your roof. HTH.

[Scott D Davis]

With the advent of the new stacked walls in Revit 7.0, this might be a better solution for you. Stacked walls will attach to roofs and floors, and in my opinion, can be controlled much easier than vertically compound walls.

Vertically compound walls will not attach if layers have been extended, which really makes them usable for parapet conditions only.

[noah]

By stacked walls do mean placing two walls side by side in plan view and joining them?

That's what I ended up doing and it worked fine. Seems a little unfortunate that you can't attach extended walls. Actually you can if the walls is standing alone but as soon as you have a chain of walls the won't attach for some reason. Seems like the factory should work this out.

However, the side by side walls isn't that bad. I can imagine that this is how I might prefer to work because I can rough in the geometry of the structure using one set of "stud" walls and then later on in CD's add in a second wall for finish (which I can pull down over the foundation and extend up to the parapet. Lots of manual joins but it works.

[luigi]

He means instead of unlocking a material and extending it, to make two walls that are stacked (one on top of the other) instead...(This was supposed to be the definition of a stacked wall, I meant the stack wall command...my English deteriorates as my stay in Poland prolongs)

right Scott?

[Scott D Davis]

No, Stacked Walls are a new wall type, made in the Wall editor, by stacking different wall types on top of each other vertically. They dont have to be completely different wall types. In Revit Help, type "walls, vertically stacked" in the Index box, and you will get the help file for it.

Revit now has "Basic Walls", "Stacked Walls", and "Curtain Walls" as specific types.

[luigi]

I edited my earlier response....feel bad for my English no good no more, me go read the book of english

[Scott D Davis]

It's OK Luigi! I just wanted to make it clear that Stacked Walls is an actual "tool", not just simply drawing one wall type on top of another. 8)

[noah]

I'll check it out. Out of curiosity how does it clean up? Do stacked walls show the horizontal line between the walls or does revit treat them as a join in elevation and section?

[Martin P]

We had to stop attaching stacked walls to roofs, as it gave us problems and errors. Are you not experiencing this with stacked walls Scott?

[roy.70844]

Hello Scott,

Do you know if it possible to have stacked walls that are level dependent rather than fixed height. For example I would like a Foundation wall of 350mm depth then a trench wall from level 0 to level 1, then a brick finish cavity wall from level 1 to level 2, then a render finished cavity wall from level 2 to level 3 (Roof).

I know I should probably start a new thread for this, but since you mentioned stacked walls..........

Roy

[sbrown]

Now that is a good wishlist if you can't do it allready. I haven't gotten to use them yet.

[Scott D Davis]

I haven't had errors with stacked walls yet, but you have to be aware of how they are built. If you have two wall types that make up your stacked wall, the bottom of the two is a set height, and the top is variable which allows it to attach. If you have three types, the bottom two are set height, and the top is variable. The problem is, you could make the middle portion variable, and then it wont attach to roofs, because the top portion has been 'fixed'.

Another problem arises if you don't allow enough 'space' for the variable portion. Lets say your stacked wall has Type A at the base, and its height is set at 10'-0", and the top portion Type B is variable. If you put a roof over this wall, and the slope of the roof lowers any point of the roof to below 10'-0", then you will get errors, because Revit thinks the lower portion must be 10'-0" and therefore cannot attach it to a roof lower than 10'-0".

Hope that makes sense!

(edit! Oh, about the Levels....that is a great wish! You currently set the distance of each stacked wall element by a distance number, not by level. The choice to assign it by level would be awesome!)

[BWG]

I haven't had errors with stacked walls yet, but you have to be aware of how they are built. If you have two wall types that make up your stacked wall, the bottom of the two is a set height, and the top is variable which allows it to attach. If you have three types, the bottom two are set height, and the top is variable. The problem is, you could make the middle portion variable, and then it wont attach to roofs, because the top portion has been 'fixed'.

Another problem arises if you don't allow enough 'space' for the variable portion. Lets say your stacked wall has Type A at the base, and its height is set at 10'-0", and the top portion Type B is variable. If you put a roof over this wall, and the slope of the roof lowers any point of the roof to below 10'-0", then you will get errors, because Revit thinks the lower portion must be 10'-0" and therefore cannot attach it to a roof lower than 10'-0".

Hope that makes sense!

(edit! Oh, about the Levels....that is a great wish! You currently set the distance of each stacked wall element by a distance number, not by level. The choice to assign it by level would be awesome!)


I can't get this roof thing to work. I have the 2x4 stud brick wall on the bottom to a height of 8'-1 1/4" and the top wall, 2x4 siding, set to variable. The roof is on the building at 8'-1 1/4" plate height. When I click on the wall and attach to the roof, the siding wall will attach and the brick layer of the wall below will attach. ??? I have tried using a 2x6 siding wall on top to go over the air gap and just over the brick. This solved the brick going up, but now only one side of the wall is attached to the gable end roof. The other side continues up ot the ridge height. Using the same 2x6 siding top wall, if I set the brick wall to 7', the brick continues up to the roof attach, all the way to the ridge. In addition, I somtimes get an error message that highlighted elements miss the target, detach target? My gable end overhangs the wall, so I don't know what it means. Any clues??

[tamas]

Could you post your file here?

Tamas

[Steve_Stafford]

...The choice to assign it by level would be awesome!...Awesome, but "risky" if levels are changed without understanding the relationship..

[BWG]

Could you post your file here?

Tamas

Tamas,

The file is too large. It is 8 megs and the site only allows 1.2 megs. I will try support in the morning.

Thanks,

[tamas]

Tamas,

The file is too large. It is 8 megs and the site only allows 1.2 megs. I will try support in the morning.

Thanks,
From the images it seems that you can strip everything but walls and roofs from you model and still show the same problem. Once purged, the size may substantially shrink and you may be able to post it here. Of course, support is a perfectly viable option as well.

Thanks,
Tamas

[BWG]

From the images it seems that you can strip everything but walls and roofs from you model and still show the same problem. Once purged, the size may substantially shrink and you may be able to post it here. Of course, support is a perfectly viable option as well.

Thanks,
Tamas


Here you go. South elevation.

[tamas]

Here you go. South elevation.
Thanks. It is a bug and I reported it. It is not related to Stacked Wall type, rather the position of the top subwall causes the odd behavior.

The bottom faces of the roof cut off the base plate corners of the top subwall and Revit has problem resolving this case. If you manage to avoid this condition, the attachment will succeed.

Tamas

[BWG]

Thanks. It is a bug and I reported it. It is not related to Stacked Wall type, rather the position of the top subwall causes the odd behavior.

The bottom faces of the roof cut off the base plate corners of the top subwall and Revit has problem resolving this case. If you manage to avoid this condition, the attachment will succeed.

Tamas

So, the workaround would be drawing a wall on top of another wall rather than using stacked. This is an existing wall. I can't make it up what is happening there. I tried the brick at 7' and the siding above that, but that did not work either.

[tamas]

So, the workaround would be drawing a wall on top of another wall rather than using stacked. This is an existing wall. I can't make it up what is happening there. I tried the brick at 7' and the siding above that, but that did not work either.
You could edit the elevation profile of the bad wall to match the triangle that should be created by the roof attachment. That would work for both stacked wall or regular wall cases.

Tamas

[BWG]

You could edit the elevation profile of the bad wall to match the triangle that should be created by the roof attachment. That would work for both stacked wall or regular wall cases.

Tamas

Ok, Thanks

[patrick.villella]

I know this thread is ancient, but I ran across it today and thought it was worth mentioning that some of these issues mentioned have been greatly improved in recent versions (Revit 2009 and on) and allow for much more flexibility.

Stacked walls are a great feature, but when using them, you often need to have many different wall types to accomplish what you are building. Using a vertically compound wall with unlocked material layers may not be quite as flexible, but it keeps your wall types to a minimum and allows for many different heights. Contrary to several of these old posts, you are now able to attach such a wall to a roof or ceiling. In fact, a single vertically compound wall can be attached to both a roof and a ceiling. Let's say you have a sloped roof and want a CMU/insulation/GWB wall to extend to it -- you attach the wall to the roof and all materials now terminate at the bottom of the roof object. Say you want the insulation and gyp to terminate at a solid ceiling -- you can attach the walls to the ceiling as well, and as long as the ceiling object is flush with the inside face of the CMU, the insulation and GWB material will no terminate at the ceiling, while the cmu goes all the way up to the roof. Nice!

Despite these great improvements, expect that there will be a few times when you get the dreaded 'cannot extend layer of the highlighted vertically compound wall', though not nearly as often as we used to. In that case, you may have to play a bit with the location of the roof line, to make sure it intersects just the materials you want to cut.

One other caveat to keep in mind is that walls that have a miter wall join may not be able to be attached to a roof. That's not usually a big deal, but in some cases you may have some extraneous lines where two vertically compound walls clean up. Setting their join type to miter cleans these lines up, but then they aren't able to be attached. Strange. What we've been doing is to try to get them to clean up as best we can, attach them, then use the linework tool to remove the extra lines.

Check out some of our additional tips at http://www.cadsoft-consult.com/blogs/architecture

Patrick Villella
CADsoft Consulting