Sprinkler Head Coverage Area

[Wish List System]

Summary: Show coverage area of sprinkler head, so it doesn't penetrate walls of an architectural linked model.

Description: Would like to see the coverage area of a sprinkler head when placed into the model. So that it doesn't penetrate the architectural linked model walls. When placing heads the coverage area would show like the luminaries on lighting and not go through the walls to ensure coverage area is met and is not over looked by overlapping coverage area.

Product and Feature: Revit MEP - MEP Family Contents/Components (Plumbing)

Submitted By: Patrick Snyder on 07/18/2013

[mitchellvoss]

the basic concept could apply to more than sprinklers, ie fire alarm detection, etc. create a category that doesn't leave the room/space.

[Wanderer]

the basic concept could apply to more than sprinklers, ie fire alarm detection, etc. create a category that doesn't leave the room/space.

Yeah, I agree...

[Fish667145]

Yeah, I agree...

New to Revit.. Was anything ever developed on this

[mitchellvoss]

New to Revit.. Was anything ever developed on this

nothing that I have seen yet.

[BenSammis]

nothing that I have seen yet.

You can do this by drawing the coverage area in your family and creating a parameter to toggle the visibility on/off. I've seen it with FA device families. It won't stop at the walls, but that shouldn't really matter. The problem, and the reason I don't use those FA families, is that that coverage area is part of the family and you'll constantly be mistakenly selecting the sprinkler when working anywhere within the coverage area. If you use hosted families, the entire coverage area also becomes a potential host surface. Unintended consequences suck.

[Wanderer]

You can do this by drawing the coverage area in your family and creating a parameter to toggle the visibility on/off. I've seen it with FA device families. It won't stop at the walls, but that shouldn't really matter. The problem, and the reason I don't use those FA families, is that that coverage area is part of the family and you'll constantly be mistakenly selecting the sprinkler when working anywhere within the coverage area. If you use hosted families, the entire coverage area also becomes a potential host surface. Unintended consequences suck.

I'll have to disagree. I work post-construction and we've got a lot of tightly packed areas and buildings on different circuits. It could cause confusion.
A large floor plate, when people want to see the whole thing on one plan, means you're not close enough to differentiate detail easily. Plus, the consumers of any of this information are used to seeing thematic plans of any type (occupancy, asbestos, room type, etc) coded exactly to the room boundaries. Much easier to consume information when it is consistent to what users are accustomed to.

Edit: Exterior walls for buildings do butt up against each other for FA, firewalls, evac zones etc, even if a department spans that boundary. We wouldn't want any service appearing to overlap, as they OP says, that could result in coverage oversight.

[mitchellvoss]

we do add the coverage area to our families. (Helpful tip, have the coverage reduce to a size smaller than the family and then turn off when not in use. Otherwise, if you want to window around the family, you have to window around the coverage area too.) The issue is that nothing stops the coverage area from leaving the space/room. Ideally, it would not leave the space.

[jonathantlarson796878]

(Helpful tip, have the coverage reduce to a size smaller than the family and then turn off when not in use. Otherwise, if you want to window around the family, you have to window around the coverage area too.)

Can you elaborate on how you accomplish this? I'm working with sprinklers in Revit for the first time. I have the coverage shown as a symbolic line in the sprinkler family with its own line category. I then turn the visibility of that linetype on and off via the view template in my project. It shows up as a sub-category under the sprinkler category. Do I need to instead control visibility of the coverage lines by assigning them a type parameter and then switch that on and off in the project by editing the family type? I kind of prefer using the view template to control visibility because then I can be sure that the coverage lines won't show up in my sheets which use a separate template from the working views. But I am also annoyed by having to window around the coverage lines even when they're not visible. Thanks in advance for your help!