Graphic solution at fire rated walls.

[dgraue]

I thought I'd share this possible solution...

We have been using the "tape" method of graphically showing fire rated walls. We used the hatch patterns some of you posted for 1 and 2 HR walls which works very well typically. A problem we ran into was on large multi-family projects with many unit types. We Group unit types (ie: UPN A1, UPN B3, etc.) and the corridor walls are usually grouped with the unit, so as the plans are adjusted through the design phases the entry doors and their wall recesses can be adjusted acordinigly. The corridor walls are typically 1 HR rated walls. Now, Units don't always line up nicely across the hall from one another and as the building gets divided up by 2 HR Area Separation Walls, there are portions of the corridor wall running along Units that need to have a 2 HR rating. Since this is an a-typical condition and does not occur at every UPN B3 (for instance) how do you change the wall and it's rating without creating another group?

One way we've devised is to create a "Stacked Wall" for the Corridor Wall where the lower portion is a 1 HR wall structure (with the 1 HR fire hatch) and the upper portion is a 2 HR wall structure (with 2 HR fire hatch). Typically a "View Range" is set to 4'-0", so we split the corridor wall at 4'-6" and put a "Plan Region" set to 5'-0" around that "a-typical" 2 HR corridor condition. We actually end up faking the 2 HR portion of the wall by making it the same thickness as the 1 HR wall...otherwise our corridor walls would show a difference in thickness in each building section. Since these 2 HR jogs are typically short runs to the next demising wall, we can live with the fact that the width is not correct here as long as the fire rating tape reads correctly.

I have attached an example rvt file. Take a look and if you have any other ideas on this solution, please share.

DG

[Mr Spot]

What's wrong with filters for showing fire ratings? Isn't this one of the reasons they were implemented?

[dgraue]

What's wrong with filters for showing fire ratings? Isn't this one of the reasons they were implemented?

It's a graphics issue. The fire tape method uses a drafting fill pattern which is associated to the stud layer in the wall's makeup. You then select the stud "material" and apply the fill pattern to it's cut pattern. Filters do not allow you to switch out fill patterns within a wall's makeup and we don't want to switch out an entire wall type. We are only looking to change the rating for a short run of the wall's length and since this wall is part of a group the wall type can't be switched out without affecting the group.

[dbaldacchino]

This whole fire-rating issue needs to be better handled than using cut hatches in my opinion. I don't like the use of hatches, because I want to be able to use solid hatched walls (whether black, white or grey) for presentation reasons. It should be as simple as selecting a rating instance parameter value within the wall and then you would set up a fire rating plan. Depending on what rating it is, the walls display with the appropriate graphic representation. I would like all this to be built-in and making use of user assigned annotation families or something similar for each different rating, in order to take care of regional/cultural/office standards differences. But right now I'm resorting to the old fire tape method. I built one detail component line-based family with arrays and all the rating types are controlled from within it with visibility parameters (wall to deck non-rated, 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr). Then I just turn my view to coarse detail, set my cut hatch to white, select the detail component tool in the drafting Tab and use the pick lines to select the wall centerline. And pick your merry way until you're done.....the only drawback at the moment is that this doesn't work with curves. I'll build one later to handle curves....or perhaps I'll use the railing tool YET AGAIN for something other than a railing :)

[dgraue]

This whole fire-rating issue needs to be better handled than using cut hatches in my opinion. I don't like the use of hatches, because I want to be able to use solid hatched walls (whether black, white or grey) for presentation reasons. It should be as simple as selecting a rating instance parameter value within the wall and then you would set up a fire rating plan. Depending on what rating it is, the walls display with the appropriate graphic representation. I would like all this to be built-in and making use of user assigned annotation families or something similar for each different rating, in order to take care of regional/cultural/office standards differences. But right now I'm resorting to the old fire tape method. I built one detail component line-based family with arrays and all the rating types are controlled from within it with visibility parameters (wall to deck non-rated, 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr). Then I just turn my view to coarse detail, set my cut hatch to white, select the detail component tool in the drafting Tab and use the pick lines to select the wall centerline. And pick your merry way until you're done.....the only drawback at the moment is that this doesn't work with curves. I'll build one later to handle curves....or perhaps I'll use the railing tool YET AGAIN for something other than a railing :)

Agreed. This needs to be addressed to allow for different office standards.
We assign a solid fill cut pattern to the wall material in object styles, so by default in a coarse detail view we have poched walls. It is when we set the detail view to medium that we see the fire-rating hatch. If the wall is assigned a fire-rating, we should have graphic control to be able to show that as needed. I don't like the idea of re-tracing the walls in order to show the fire rating like we did in autocad.

[Matt Brennan]

Hey DG,

Awesome tip by the way. This is the same look that ADT does when you use the F.R.R. tool. Do you think you could please post the hatches you used?

Again a great tip!!!

[dgraue]

Hey DG,

Awesome tip by the way. This is the same look that ADT does when you use the F.R.R. tool. Do you think you could please post the hatches you used?

Again a great tip!!!

These patterns were from someone's previous post. I don't remember who's, but I'm glad they shared.

[Matt Brennan]

GREAT! THANKS AGAIN!!

[dbaldacchino]

So then how do your exterior walls show up in plan views? We use a lot of cavity walls (CMU walls with Brick veneer or Cold Formed Metal Framing with brick veneer) and I just don't see how you can use these fills without compromising the rest of the drawing set. What happens in wall sections? Do you just set your views in coarse detail and don't see the wall layers and then just add detail components?

[dgraue]

So then how do your exterior walls show up in plan views? We use a lot of cavity walls (CMU walls with Brick veneer or Cold Formed Metal Framing with brick veneer) and I just don't see how you can use these fills without compromising the rest of the drawing set. What happens in wall sections? Do you just set your views in coarse detail and don't see the wall layers and then just add detail components?

We don't assign fire-rating tape to exterior walls, only interior walls. Ratings for exterior walls are shown in the exterior wall assembly sheets. The exterior walls show all of their layers (ie, stucco, studs, air space, interior finish, etc.) in plan as usual. For rated interior walls (which the fire department insists shows up graphically on the plans) we create a new "material" layer and assign the cut pattern there. Our building sections are usually in coarse detail mode (or we turn off the wall cut pattern in that view if it is large scale) while enlarged sections are made up of detail components with the background turned off. Sure, it's still a workaround...but it seems to be a fairly efficient method for us. At least until this Wish List item is addressed by factory. ;)

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I know it's been said before but all we need is some way of embedding a line into a wall style and having display control over it independant of the rest of the wall. If we get that then the rest becomes moot, right?

[dbaldacchino]

Yep, as long as we have a line that behaves like a polyline in ADT (accepts thickness rather than just lineweight). Otherwise I guess it could be based on using some sort of user defined annotation family.

[mattmols]

I believe this issue may be resolved in Revit 2008, because we can control the filters in the specific views. In order to control where the hatched areas are in the walls, you can control the "fire rating" parameter of each wall types and then create a visibility filter for each rating.

[lhanyok]

It seems like this solution will work for me (creating a filter override for the cut pattern in 2008). However, I'm having trouble with the hatches. I downloaded the ones that were posted earlier in this thread, but they just show up as solid. My guess is that there's something up with the scale - but I don't know how to fix it. My views are at 1/16". I've attached an example of one wall using the same methodology I did in my project.

[dgraue]

In your case if you go to the properties of the wall you will see that nothing has been assigned to "Fire Rating". Change the Fire Rating properties of this wall to be 1 Hour and the override should show you the correct hatch pattern. This is because you are using Filters and have set the override to look for "1 Hour" under the Fire Rating of the wall.

DG

[lhanyok]

I already have that set up. If you turn off the filter it shows the standard wall hatch pattern, but when you turn on the filter the hatch is just solid.

[david.kingham]

Couple problems with the filter solution:
1. Pattern will not align with the element
2. For some reason it turns to a solid fill, if you turn on thin lines you can see the hatch as it would normally appear, turn off thin lines and it goes solid...very odd

[dgraue]

This is odd. When I opened up your file the first time and drew a wall I simply assigned "1 Hour" to the fire rating and the hatch was correct. Now that I am trying to recreate it, the wall will only show the hatch as a solid. Hmmm.

[Matt H]

I'm having the same problem... not sure whats going on...

[Matt H]

I found the problem... It was the Hatch... In the settings menu...Go to Fill Patterns...Edit the 1-Hour.. Set Orientation with Host Object to "Align with Element"

Should work then! As least i hope so... hahaha

[david.kingham]

I saw that too, only works if the pattern is in the wall, not in a filter

[Matt H]

Nevermind... The filter rotates the fill pattern the wrong direction.... I don't know how to fix it. Here is the funny thing... If I apply the 1-hour to the stud wall instead of the Diaganal pattern, the 1-hour comes out the way it should.

[Matt H]

But i did get it to work if you change the detail level to Coarse...

[Matt H]

Little Update... Its the File you used... i started a new project and created the exact same plan... and mine worked great.

[david.kingham]

I dont think it's the file, I just tried with the default 08 template and have the same results, there is a bug that causes fill patterns to not align with elements with a filter in medium and fine, works in coarse though. I even got his file to work, change the fill pattern to align with element, set to coarse...doesn't look like it worked, but try creating a new wall and it does.

[Matt H]

I totally agree with you.. After some more playing. I think there is a bug.

[lhanyok]

It's good to see I'm not the only one. I think I'll send a support request. I think I can make it work with the coarse view detail.

[ErichB]

What about where the rating is actually between the studs of two tenant separation walls.

I.E. UL Detail 341? We typically run a thick line with a pattern between the studs.

Any suggestions?

We have been using thick lines, but since they are detail lines, then we cannot scale them.

Thanks!

[mcox.157847]

It would make since to me that sonce we can create line styles, that one should be able to assign that linestyle to an interior wall definition for the fire taping. The problem is that functions are there, but can't be asssigned the way we need them to be.

We should simply get the Appearance tab for Cut Pattern to allow the option for line style to use.

[mbeham]

Ok so i've been using the tape method and created new custom patterns that work excellent in Revit 2008. However when i export that drawing to AutoCAD 2008 my patterns go crazy. The horizontal ones work well when they show up. I say when the show up because some of them dont. The vertical ones show as a single line pattern, and if you put them on an angle they show up but are not correct because the spacings are thrown off between the lines. I even tried to download the patterns that were posted on here and they do the same thing. Any one have any ideas to what would cause this.

[mzabritski]

mbetham,

Not sure why they do it, but ours do the same thing. The solution we use is to load the same pattern into Autocad as a hatch. Then go into the exported AutoCAD file, select the broken hatches and change the hatch type to the Autocad version of the same hatch. You also have to change the scale. At least the rotation angle displays correctly. Its a few extra steps, but at least it comes out OK in the end. The biggest challenge is that all the patterns (1 hour, 2 hour, smoke. etc..) come in one the same layer and there is no easy way to select all of certain type.

[sradley]

Does anyone have a 4 Hour.pat file?

[mbeham]

Just so everyone knows there is a program out there called global cad hatch manager that allows you to create hatch patterns from drawings. I've used it here to create our custom rated and smoke walls it works great. http://www.globalcad.com/system/index.html that is the site click on the hatch manager and you can download a free trial that allows you full capability to create and save the hatches. It works with any AutoCAD you have installed.

[david.kingham]

Here's a 4 hour I whipped together Scott

[sradley]

Thank you very much!

[patricks]

Has anyone noticed any system slow-downs using these patterns? It seems to take quite awhile, for me, to load up the pattern when you're first defining and creating the custom patterns, and I'm running quad processors.

[mbeham]

Ok so since i have been racking my brain for a few months on this hatch pattern "tape" method for fire walls I have successfully got it working nicely then broken it. When i say broken i mean the fact that it doesnt work in AutoCAD and the work around is not practical, has made me find what I, as the R & D person, and the user have found to be an even better solution that doesnt involve pesky hatch patterns. What I have discovered isnt a perfect solution. Basically what i have done is created a plan profile that is 10 feet tall and approximatley a 1/2" wide. Then I go to the Wall properties and modified the wall to have a sweep in the center of the wall. (the 10' will need to be adjusted per height but more on that later) Now you will see the sweep in section. Finish the family of the wall and go to the plan. in the plan you will see the profile lines for the sweep. Now set up linestyles for each type of rated wall. Use the linework tool to override the lines in plans and sections where you want to see the line in the center of the wall. Where you dont override with the linework tool using the <invisible lines>. We've found this a much better solution than the hatches and drawing the 2D Detail lines because its part of the wall, moves with the wall, extends with the wall, you can change the line weights to look appropriate. The only issue is in section the profile will need to be the height of the wall. But this helps you control if the wall is only rated on one floor its easy to do that as well with a sepearte wall type and using the offsets. Like i said not a perfect solution but this helps us because not all our disciplines are using Revit and we need to be able to see the linework in autoCAD.

[david.kingham]

Sounds similar to this http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=69076&highlight=fire+rating