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View Full Version : Sealant Around Curtain Walls?



saeborne
2008-07-17, 03:14 PM
Hi all,

What is the best way to deal with the sealant around curtain walls,

Please look at the first screen capture: "1 CADD DETAIL.jpg" This is the condition to which I'm referring. Where a mullion hits a brick wall, there is a 3/4" gap infilled with sealant, backer rods, etc.

"2 COARSE.jpg" is a screen shot from Revit in Coarse scale view. This is perfectly fine for schematic level work. But obviously, the actual geometric length of glass / mullion is not true. Every edge is 3/4" off.

"3 FINE.jpg" is from Revit at a Fine Scale view. Notice how the mullion shows much more detail. This is done through detail components in the profile... Like the Kawneer components from BIMWORLD. In an ideal world, we want to take live plan / section details directly from the model, for these conditions. As much as possible, I want to avoid doing drafting views for this condition.

"4 GAP.jpg" Yes, I could model it so that there is a 3/4" gap, then infill with detail components. But frankly, this method SUCKS!!! At each edge of every curtain wall, I would need to "Disallow joins." Plus, down the road, I believe this will mess up Revit MEP.

"5 IRREGULAR MULLION.jpg" I could play with the profile of the mullion, to geometrically represent the depth of the sealant. I could add detail components within the profile (visibility controlled by level of detail) to represent the silicon and backer rod, etc.

But I have a couple problems with this.... I have no way of controlling the material of the sealant vs. the material mullion. So that 3/4" gap between the brick and the mullion will read as clear anodized aluminum. Also, my mullion is 2" wide, not 2 3/4"! technically, I have to model incorrectly to trick Revit into acknowledging the sealant.


Wow... long f'ing post. Well, thank you if you managed to get through it all. I appreciate any feedback or ideas.

Bryan

Calvn_Swing
2008-07-17, 03:18 PM
Well,

We model it with a gap because, quite frankly, that is how it is built. We haven't had any problems with Revit MEP thus far, so I don't think that is an issue. We usually tell Cwalls to disallow joins anyway, because they rarely join the way we want them to in the first place, so it works for us pretty well.

We also embed sealant, backer rod, and blocking in our head/jamb/sill detail components that we load into those profiles. So, those show up automatically as well.

Good luck with this one!

patricks
2008-07-17, 04:15 PM
I have never modeled the sealant joints, but I show them in my head/jamb/sill details.

This has always worked for us, and the shop drawings we get for storefront/curtain walls is usually always correct. The overall dimensions I have shown are translated to rough opening sizes, and the supplier figures in the required gap around the edges for sealant, shims, etc.

greg.mcdowell
2008-07-17, 04:41 PM
I just started doing something similar to your last idea only I don't have the sealant offset like you do. I thought about it but decided the extra polys weren't worth it.

You mention that your panel stops at the exterior of thIe mullion. Not sure what we did differently but mine goes into the mullion as it's supposed to so you should be able to acheive the same.

I haven't concerned myself with the differing widths of the frames nor the material of the sealant. I figure the former can be correct in schedules with a custom parameter and the later is more detailed than I think we need to get. If we want that level of realism we'll be going outside Revit anyway.