Schedule Material Thickness for walls

[poohkabot144452]

Hi,
I'm trying to find a way to schedule the thickness of wall materials. i.e.- 3 5/8" stud layer or 5/8" GWB.

Right now Revit allows me to schedule generic materials by name (so I could schedule "Metal- Stud Layer" or "GWB") and will even give the volume of those materials, but won't give me the thickness of them.

I can go in and create materials that have the thickness in the name, but then I have to make sure each name matches up with the thickness of the wall under the structure tab. It would be much easier to schedule that thickness.

Is there an easy way to do this?

[aggockel50321]

Take a look at project instance parameters. You could have one called "Sheetrock Thickness" and "Metal Stud Size.

You'd have to add the values manually in the schedule.....

[brethomp]

You could use a calculated value in your schedule, volume divided by area (see image). But you will want to sort/group this schedule by wall type, since this calculation would give you average thickness.

[dimitri]

I have a similar question....i need to know the number of studs in a certain wall. I'm figuring to use a calculated value in the schedule like: Material: Area / spacing of studs. Apart from that route, does Revit allow you to dictate the spacing and hence the count of the studs?

[Scott Womack]

I have a similar question....i need to know the number of studs in a certain wall. I'm figuring to use a calculated value in the schedule like: Material: Area / spacing of studs. Apart from that route, does Revit allow you to dictate the spacing and hence the count of the studs?

Not directly, you'd have to use a series of parameters/calculated parameters, pluse the wall length, to calculate number of studs in a project. LOL! :wink:

[dimitri]

Not directly, you'd have to use a series of parameters/calculated parameters, pluse the wall length, to calculate number of studs in a project. LOL! :wink:
Or give up and tell the rest of the cost team that there's only one stud on the project, me! :D

ok ok, that was as corny as it gets. :o

Thanks though Scott.

[twiceroadsfool]

I was against making different *materials* for different thicknesses, until someone here pointed out to me that it really DOES make more sense to do it that way.

Considering that objects get schedule by length/area/volume, or some combination, we really DONT want "all GWB" to be scheduled together, right? 1/2" GWB and 5/8" GWB are seperate entities, not just varying thicknesses of one material that can be assembed on site. I guess an exception would be EIFS/foam, where it does just keep getting applied.

BUT, in my material take offs... I dont want my 3-5/8" Metal Studs and my 6" Metal Studs to be the SAME material, in a large quantity total. Because thats not how i have to account for it, right?

The more i dig in to it at home, the more im starting to actually make them different materials, and get settled with dealing with the model management aspect of it. Especially with intelligent noting and tagging, it ends up working out for the best.

[dimitri]

That's my exact problem too Aaron, i'm trying to make sure the schedules spit out different quantities for the varying sizes of the studs. When you say you're 'making them different materials' what exactly do you mean?

[twiceroadsfool]

I mean exactly what the OP was saying he didnt want to do:

If you go in to one of my walls that has a 6" metal stud layer, and another wall that has a 3-5/8" metal stud layer, those are DIFFERENT materials in the material browser for me.

Metal Stud Layer- 6"
Metal Stud Layer- 3-5/8"

Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 1/2"
Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 5/8"
Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 5/8" Type X


It looks like that in the material browser. yes, you then have to make sure the right materials are created and used when youre making assemblies of different thicknesses... But thats the game if we want these models to be intelligent, imho...

[dimitri]

I mean exactly what the OP was saying he didnt want to do:

If you go in to one of my walls that has a 6" metal stud layer, and another wall that has a 3-5/8" metal stud layer, those are DIFFERENT materials in the material browser for me.

Metal Stud Layer- 6"
Metal Stud Layer- 3-5/8"

Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 1/2"
Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 5/8"
Finishes- Gypsum Wall Board- 5/8" Type X


It looks like that in the material browser. yes, you then have to make sure the right materials are created and used when youre making assemblies of different thicknesses... But thats the game if we want these models to be intelligent, imho...
Wow, can't believe i never thought about that before.... :(
I'll do that from now on though Aaron....a little extra work up front but it really is just a couple more steps.

[twiceroadsfool]

Well, i agree that its worth it down the line, and that its the right way to go. (Everyone take note, i have 100% REVERSED my opinion on this matter from my previous refusal to go down this road, LOL).

But its a bit more work the farther down the road you get. Suddenly someone wants the cut pattern changed for GWB, and theres like... 8 of them to change. Keynotes, material tags, rendering materials, etc...

But i think for the Intelligence to be there, it has to go this way.

[dimitri]

I'm experiencing that 'suddenly someone wants to change cut pattern' incident right now!!

[gaby424]

You could use a calculated value in your schedule, volume divided by area (see image). But you will want to sort/group this schedule by wall type, since this calculation would give you average thickness.

i`ve tryed to avoid to make diffrent materials for differnt thickness. Insteed i`ve tested the method with a calculated value parameter = material:volume/material:area and than sort and filter by a material name and thickness parameter.

Teh model I`ve tested is a small house with 5 types of wall an 10 typs of materials.
The problem is that in material takeoff are incomplete...for some reasons on the rows of materials from some of the typs of walls the material thickness parameter remains blank eaven if area and volume material is showen.

I`ve tryed to find why this blank cells. There is somthing related to joining of the elements of diffrent types but the procces is not logical at all (it`s something buggy involved) . This aply to 2009 and 2010.

Anyway ...it seems diffrent materials for differnt thickness is the way. Very ugly. A lot of redundant info (the material thickness should be specified three tymes:1. in the name of the wall, 2. in the edit structure assambly, 3. in the material browser a new material with his explicit name that involve the thickness. Maype 4 times if you use keynotes. IT IS NOT SMART OF ALL. THIS IS NOT A BIM WAY. This will make the users to make a lot of mistakes when make new wall assamblies....

[tomnewsom]

Materials should be Families with Family and Type parameters so we can change global and local settings for different 'sub-materials'

[hand471037]

The more i dig in to it at home, the more im starting to actually make them different materials, and get settled with dealing with the model management aspect of it. Especially with intelligent noting and tagging, it ends up working out for the best.

That's how we do it, so that when we use a Material or Keynote tag in a section or legend it reports the actual material with thickness.

We also do that so we can do automated take-offs of the materials.

It does make for more management within the Material settings however, but if you've got that setup within your project template (and don't get fussy with stupid graphic changes) then it's not any extra time.

[twiceroadsfool]

Anyway ...it seems diffrent materials for differnt thickness is the way. Very ugly. A lot of redundant info (the material thickness should be specified three tymes:1. in the name of the wall, 2. in the edit structure assambly, 3. in the material browser a new material with his explicit name that involve the thickness. Maype 4 times if you use keynotes. IT IS NOT SMART OF ALL. THIS IS NOT A BIM WAY. This will make the users to make a lot of mistakes when make new wall assamblies....

I didnt think it was *very BIM* back then either, until someone pointed out the differences in certain materials to me. For EIFS, or insulation... Maybe the thickness really is variable and can be treated as such, in which case using the assemblies (walls, roofs, floors) to manage the different thicknesses is fine.

But for something like sheathing, Wallboard, plywd, Concrete Block, etc... It really IS the BIM way that they be different materials. Youre not going to pay a certain amount for the total VOLUME of sheetrock used, its going to depend on the amount of 1/2 inch thick, the amount of 5/6 inch thick, etc. Metal studs come in different sizes, but they may be different costs. Using one material for them really isnt the *bim* way either...

[hand471037]

Metal studs come in different sizes, but they may be different costs. Using one material for them really isnt the *bim* way either...

They even come in different gauges, which effect both the cost and the structural abilities. So yeah, it's a bit of a pain to have a bunch of materials in your model, but I think it's worth it in the long run. We've found the more we make our models 'real' the better, but then we're also using those models for CNC so we can't cheat as much as y'all can.

[gaby424]

Metal studs come in different sizes, but they may be different costs. Using one material for them really isnt the *bim* way either...

indeed you right. :) but it would be be nicer if thay make a system more inteligent in order to remove the idea to type redundant info.

Let say you make materials for every thicknes and every brand and every cost etc. A looot of combinations...so huuuge list.
It would be intresing to implement some tools to make the name of the walltype to be generated automaticly by the internal specifications of materials involved in it`s stucture.
I imagine a panel with all materials parameters from that walltype and their values and you have some options like this(quoted elements are dropdown menus):
make name by "concatenate" first "tree" letters of "material name" + "material.thickness" +"add.another" ordered from "exterior.to.interior". you have check box buton for suffix prefix. All quoted values are dropdown menus so you can change diferend material variables if you wand them in name . This kind of generated template for the name of a parameter based on other parameters should be as a option available everywhere. so if you change a material variable the parent elements change their parameters too(in this case the name parameter of the walltype). This will be in the BIM SPIRIT. No room for mistake.

[gaby424]

I was thinking more over the night :)

if you have 2 products from same material, same ticknes, but different Material:cost you can make "instance shared project parameters" for materials and in the material identity data at the bottom you`ll have new fields for diffrent costs like cost1, cost2, cost3. So when you make studies in a Schedule Material you can display in paralel(in multiple colons in order to compare) or only the cost you want. This can by aply for all the other default parameters from material(Material:Manufacturer, Material:description etc).

The big downside is that if you use cost 2 in a Schedule for one material you will have cost 2 for all materials. So you can solve that by making a separate Schedule for each material. But you can`t have a total cost in the end........

Anyway if you put there a Material:Thicness is good info in Schedule but if you put more Material:thickness parammeters the different values of this parameters don`t affect the geometry(logicaly :)). In the best case with diferent calculate values you can display in a Schedule diferent corelated parameters like diferent material volums. So the different thickness material parameters not big help :)



Anyway just thoughts :)