Dealing with multiple building and parapet heights

[crullier]

Revit: Dealing with multiple building and parapet heights help

I wanted to get some feed back from those on the designs side you have dealt with building that have different parapet heights and in some cases different beam heights.
I have heard thing such as using the Level tool to created non-floor plan levels to using reference planes to using the spot elevation tool.
For me the challenge of using levels is that with a building with 3 different parapet heights, you will end up with 3 different levels called "Top of Parapet" - the same will happen for TOB, etc.
I am interested to learn from my peers on what works and what doesn't. For me projects like these are a headache for the reason mentioned above.

[dhurtubise]

Personnaly, unless you have to create floor plans drawings it's not a level. Rf Plane can be named and used to attach stuff.
You can also make a Spot Elevation look like a level

[Joshua Kohl]

You could create a custom level head family that has a shared parameter for the "displayed name" (T.O. Parapet) while the the actual name of the level could be more descriptive and is not visible. The actual level can't be used more than once.

A building level doesn't have to have a floor plan view associated with it.

[damon.sidel]

Personally, I would create the levels and then deal with it as a naming convention and view filters problem. In every elevation or section, I would want to know where the beams are and where the top of parapets are.

[crullier]

You could create a custom level head family that has a shared parameter for the "displayed name" (T.O. Parapet) while the the actual name of the level could be more descriptive and is not visible. The actual level can't be used more than once.

A building level doesn't have to have a floor plan view associated with it.

While that sounds like a good idea I think it would complicate things. I really like to keep to keep it simple.
Today I realized the potential for another option, Levels have an instance property "Building Story" while can be used to filter levels out of view.

This means, I can make my non-floor plan creating level whatever I want (descriptively) and use view templates to hide them on the elevations. Then I can use a customized spot elevation mark to annotate the heights I want.

What do you guys think?

I think the advantage here is full control of annotations and well as keeping the model nice an easy for everyone to work on.

[patricks]

I personally just put the height as part of the level name when dealing with stuff like that. Things like "16' Parapet" and "19' Parapet", or "12'-6" TOB" and so on. Makes it super easy when clicking the pull-down box for base and top of walls to distinguish what level is what.

I did this on a huge manufacturing facility project that had something like 10 different building eave heights, and it worked perfectly.

[crullier]

I personally just put the height as part of the level name when dealing with stuff like that. Things like "16' Parapet" and "19' Parapet", or "12'-6" TOB" and so on. Makes it super easy when clicking the pull-down box for base and top of walls to distinguish what level is what.

I did this on a huge manufacturing facility project that had something like 10 different building eave heights, and it worked perfectly.

How does that look on an elevation?
Did you customize the level annotation for that purpose, otherwise I am thinking you are going to have repeated elevations. Can you post a screenshot?

[patricks]

I thought this method worked excellent on a large manufacturing facility that had numerous different mezzanine levels as well as at least 4 different roof levels. Probably 25 to 30 level datums in the project, and including the height in the level name made things a TON easier.

*edit* yes I know that 2 of the levels are 1" off from the name, but we just had not changed it at that point in the documents because we were back and forth with the engineers and owner on which heights they needed to be - 1" higher or 1" lower.

[crullier]

That doesn't look too bad, what happens with other elevation marks for part of the building not shows on this view? do you just hide them in view?
PS: it would be interesting that if both heights match, one of them disappear.

[patricks]

That doesn't look too bad, what happens with other elevation marks for part of the building not shows on this view? do you just hide them in view?
PS: it would be interesting that if both heights match, one of them disappear.

Not sure I follow your question. If there elevation datums in a view that don't need to show, then yes I would just hide them. But I try to make the elevation line's 3D extents exist only in the area where it's needed. This may be a place where Scope Boxes could be used if you're concerned about it.