Revit MEP - wastewater/water treatment facilities

[pgk920]

Is there anyone here who uses Revit MEP at their workplace primarily for wastewater and/or water treatment facility projects?

Our office is currently on various autocad platforms (no MEP platforms at this time) and we're tossing around different avenues to head down in the future.

I'd like to hear input from those who use Revit MEP in the above field as to whether it was a good switch, bad switch, indifferent, do you wish you'd found it sooner, do you wish you'd never heard of it, etc., and why.

I know a fair amount about the software already, but have yet to actually find anyone in the wastewater/water treatment field to talk to about it.

Thanks!

Paul

[AaronC]

Is there anyone here who uses Revit MEP at their workplace primarily for wastewater and/or water treatment facility projects?

Our office is currently on various autocad platforms (no MEP platforms at this time) and we're tossing around different avenues to head down in the future.

I'd like to hear input from those who use Revit MEP in the above field as to whether it was a good switch, bad switch, indifferent, do you wish you'd found it sooner, do you wish you'd never heard of it, etc., and why.

I know a fair amount about the software already, but have yet to actually find anyone in the wastewater/water treatment field to talk to about it.

Thanks!

Paul

I attended a great class at Autodesk University this year that addressed your exact situation. Here's a link to the video of the class, there are some pdf handout download links on the right as well. Hope it helps.

http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/cla...gineers/mp2857

[pgk920]

Thanks for the link Aaron. That was a good listen. He addresses some of the questions I have on this, but the one key one is that if there's someone out there who uses Revit for those types of projects, do *they* think it was a good switchover from autocad? We'll probably never have the requirement from a client to supply them with a bim model as a deliverable. In our area I just don't see that happening. It'll always be pdf's at most and paper for a long time to come.
That being said, is making the switch from an autocad based system that is pretty efficient here and works well worth it? And for that I need to hear from someone who's made that transition. The speaker never really addressed that question directly.

Paul

[wgfletch]

I would say 98% of the projects I have worked on at my current job have been WWTP WTP

Our Arch/Structural engineers refuse to use anything else other than Revit so that was a easy choice for the MEP group to make

the only major issue is our Process mechanical group in the last few years invested a lot of time and effort in CadWorkx

this is a problem for various reasons when bringing in their models to Revit....
1. they are typical incredibly over detailed and will "bog" down all revit models
2. there is no "perfect" way to import it...you run into visibility issues and it is not that easy to bring in (not as easy as it should be)

we do do some projects in Autocad MEP still but that is usually only when the client specifically asks for it...even then the export to dwg has gotten so good over the years for revit they would never know the difference anyways so thats not even an issue anymore

[pgk920]

I would say 98% of the projects I have worked on at my current job have been WWTP WTP

Our Arch/Structural engineers refuse to use anything else other than Revit so that was a easy choice for the MEP group to make

the only major issue is our Process mechanical group in the last few years invested a lot of time and effort in CadWorkx

this is a problem for various reasons when bringing in their models to Revit....
1. they are typical incredibly over detailed and will "bog" down all revit models
2. there is no "perfect" way to import it...you run into visibility issues and it is not that easy to bring in (not as easy as it should be)

we do do some projects in Autocad MEP still but that is usually only when the client specifically asks for it...even then the export to dwg has gotten so good over the years for revit they would never know the difference anyways so thats not even an issue anymore

So it sounds like it was a good switchover for you guys, and it doesn't sound like you hate it or anything. And coming from Autocad MEP you're still saying it was a good switch, so that's another good sign.
Thanks Wgfletch!

Anyone else have experiences with it one way or the other?

[LP1999]

The company I used to work for, starting using Revit extensively for wastewater projects. I would say it is a good decision. It will take a little learning curve but it is well worth it. I would rather use Revit than AutoCAD any day. The only trick with wastewater is that there is not a lot of premade equipment families so be prepared to create them. Making the families isn't that hard. The place I am at now is still mostly using AutoCAD but I am slowly convincing them. To speed up a project's scehdule I created a sludge pumping station model and then exported to AutoCAD to finish out. See pumping station image attached. I have them thinking about more Revit usage now because of it.
Broadwater Sludge Pumping Station.jpg

[pgk920]

The company I used to work for, starting using Revit extensively for wastewater projects. I would say it is a good decision. It will take a little learning curve but it is well worth it. I would rather use Revit than AutoCAD any day. The only trick with wastewater is that there is not a lot of premade equipment families so be prepared to create them. Making the families isn't that hard. The place I am at now is still mostly using AutoCAD but I am slowly convincing them. To speed up a project's scehdule I created a sludge pumping station model and then exported to AutoCAD to finish out. See pumping station image attached. I have them thinking about more Revit usage now because of it.
Broadwater Sludge Pumping Station.jpg

Thanks for the reply. All this time later we're still using autocad. In fact, even our reseller isn't convinced that Revit MEP is the correct path we should be following for our process piping projects. I guess we'll see how it goes from here.
Nice looking model you have there. I'd done stuff like that with autocad many times over the years and each time get asked by the project managers why we aren't doing that more often. My reply is always: "We don't have the software or the budgets for it" (not even running autocad MEP here)

[tfullerpipes]

Revit MEP takes on a whole new level of quality with the addition of the SysQue addin. Check out the latest issue of AUGI to see an article about it. I think process piping firms should reconsider Revit with SysQue.

[pgk920]

I found the article, but it didn't really talk about what Sysque was, just that it was used on the stuff listed in the article. So upon googling Sysque itself, that's not anything that we would use here.... at least not in the immediate future. Maybe some day down the road when everyone from design to fabrication gets on Revit, but as of now the companies in the area aren't on it yet.

Thanks!