drain piping

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

I am still working with MEP 2011, and have extreme issues with connections to sloped drain piping.  Have any of you had enough experience with MEP 2013 to allow you to proclaim that these absolutely agonizing issues have been resolved or at least improved?  If not, I am about to throw my workstation under a the next bus and retire from the profession..

[Anonymous]

Still have minor issues but nothing like 2011.  Been working on 2013 since it dropped and have had better luck with the sloped piping then in previous releases.

[Anonymous]

it has improved in 2013 .

[julianjameson8403]

Some helpful tools appeared in 2012 - such as "inherit size" and "inherit elevation" which helps greatly when adding branches to the main runs. Try using 2012 if your company hasn't invested in 2013.

[asommer]

I'll say 2012 is still lousy.  I draw sloped waste piping around a bend while the pipe slope is set to 1/8" slope.  I finish the pipe (not attached to anything yet), select it to check the slope, and it changed on it's own to some funky slope other than 1/8".

THERE IS STILL A BUG HERE, AUTODESK.

I had not tried 2013 yet.

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

I agree.  I have been work half the day trying to connect severl drain laterals to a building sewer (version 2013).  My only chace is to cut a section at the centerline of the lateral, then use trial and error to raise or lower the lateral so I can get it to connect.

I suspect that the plumbing and piping features in REVIT were programmed by an interior decorator.  Or maybe an astronomer.  There could not have been any plumbers involved in the process.

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES! 

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

OK.  I have only been using REVIT for about 18 months, and recently switched from 2011 to 2013.  My biggest frustration continues to be sloped drain piping.  I cannot get piping to connect between two fittings no matter what I do.

Has anyone had consistent success with sloped piping in REVIT?

Is there a reference guide that can help me with this?  I am spending way too much valuable time dicking around with drain pipes.  It is adding no value to my project, just eating up billable time.

[julianjameson8403]

Are you using the additional tools in the ribbon such as "inherit elevation"? This in conjunction with the ignore slope can make connecting drainage easier. The inherit elevation tool (from 2012 onwards) made drainage easier but as asommer states - it's still not great and although you specify slopes, Revit tends to adjust things to random slopes with decimal places

Drainage modelled correctly is always going to be slow and laborious especially when you have to make modifications as you almost have to start whole sections over again. That said - I have found these improvements make it less time consuming and don't make me punch the wall as often as I did trying to use sections and rotating round centre points, etc. prior to 2012

I find you have to have an idea of the layout and which drains will likely have the worst drop. These are modelled first and then the branches are modelled either using the inherit elevation on the main run and working towards the fitting/SVP or, if the vertical difference is much somewhat larger than the branch offset height, then I model from the fitting/SVP to the main run. If possible I will try and get a roll-over joint from the branch onto the main run.

Reading your posts, I'm sure you are aware of how drainage goes together. I'm not sure how you model, but I found that trying to model the way it is installed, which is different to other piped services, can help

[BRYANBRAUER1832]

Thanks for your response.  It is comforting to know that I am not the only one haveing difficulty with this.

I have tried "Ignore slope to connect" with only limited sucess.  I have not tried "Inherit Elevation" because I could not discern what it does.  Wikihelp description is very confusing.  That is one of the problems with not having a user's guide.

I have been using Autodesk products since 1989.  In the past I have been able to rely upon product documentation to help me puzzle through solutions.  With REVIT MEP, what meager documentation that exists is basically useless because it shamelessly describes proceedures which cannot work in an actual model.

I have not yet had a response from anyone that has been able to make sloped drain piping work.  This feature is, in my opinion, is a bug which prevents me from applying this software to any meaningful extent.

I think that it is important to remember that the REVIT model is not the product.  The building is the product, and all REVIT MEP is doing for me to this point is making it more costly and time consuming for my client to construct their building. 

There.  Another rant.