Best Practice: Floor Structure vs Finish

[studio3p]

I'm curious what others are doing in the arena of floors when it comes to setting project elevations and "building" floors in the project model. If I follow the logic of "model it like you'd build it", then I would have the floor structure, including deck and/or slab as one floor with it's top set to a level. On top of this structural assembly would go the finish. I'm curious about this because many of the floor assemblies in the templates have finish layers in them, thus contradicting the "model it like you'd build it" rule.

Having integral finishes presents a problem because floors are set according to their top face (not necessarily the structural core). So maybe I have another question here in addition to the one above: Is it possible to have a floor align itself to a level based on it's structural core? This would allow for keeping bearing levels, etc constant as the finish evolved over the course of a project.

So anyway, are you creating a "finish" floor on top of the structural floor, or are you creating floor assemblies that include the whole sandwich?

[jbalding48677]

The way we do it is to maintain the structural slab as the level and build a second floor in each room or area as necessary. This maintains the slab level and allows for different "finish floor" levels as each type has a diferent thinkness.

HTH -

[PeterJ]

That's my route too. I find it gives cleaner schedules too as I am only thinking in terms of the finish and not the underlying structure and if, as a favour to a QS I schedule out floors I can show one floor structure type, which is not then broken down into cera,ic, tile, sheet vinyl and so on and a second schedule that shows finishes.

[hand471037]

same here. ever since learning about this way to do floors it's all I do.

[Paul P.]

See this is what I realy like about this site, just the little thing's like this that you pick up along the way.

[Phil Palmer]

Still think that we also need visibility control over the 2 sperate types of floors within the project.

We tend to use different worksets for either the structural floor or floor finish. In true BIM terms these need to be seperated by the engineer and architect in some cases.

[sbrown]

What floors and ceilings both need is a location line just like walls, the location is face of core, then the top of slab is at the level and the floor finish is above the level. I've had too many situations where I want my ceiling tag to show the "framing elevation" not the finish and you can't.

[SkiSouth]

Still think that we also need visibility control over the 2 sperate types of floors within the project.

We tend to use different worksets for either the structural floor or floor finish. In true BIM terms these need to be seperated by the engineer and architect in some cases.

Might not be what you want but try this. Go to Object styles and create a new object style under floors and call it "Finish1". Go to your plan view with the structural floor plan as your base. Create an in place floor family - name it "Finish1". Create a solid extrusion to match the floor of the room with Finish1 on it (With the appropriate thickness for the material). Assign the material type to the extrusion , select the subcategory of "Finish1" and finish the family. You should now have a floor finish of the appropriate type and thickness in the model, and you also can control its visibility separately from the structural floor with the View controls by simply turning "Finish1" either on or off.

Not ideal, but it will work.

[hand471037]

Hey sbrown, that's a great idea! Make it so that floors/ceilings/roofs are either of a 'structure' or 'framing' catagory (which would behave as they do now) or a 'finish' catagory (where they are hosted in turn by other floors/ceilings/roofs), and be able to schedule/control/visibility of the two sepirate without having to do it manually....

[cphubb]

Since we only have need of floor finish when rendering we have been just creating floors that have structure. We then paint the floor in the rooms that need to be rendered and go that way. We are attaching the finish materials to the room anyway for the schedule and right now that is the easist wya for us. We use the room types and modify the exceptions.

However going foward I think that allassemblies need a core/finish boundry defiition. We have run into this with roofs because the structure often stops at the outside wall but the membrane and roofing may go to the edge of the overhang. We end up defining 2 thin roofs and then drawing trusses under the roof for the structure. It would be nice to have those assemblies together like walls.

Chris