Problem with Building Type Settings in Revit MEP 2014

[williambonenberger4596]

I am having a problem with running the energy model using conceptual mass mode.  I set the building type as "manufacturing", then change the area per person from the default of 430.6 to 2000 SF/person.  When I run the energy simulation, the # of people reported is based on the default of 430.6 SF/person, and not based on the 2000 SF/person that I changed it to.  I have the same problem with lighting watts/SF and power watts/SF.  Whatever I change them to does not seem to be used in the energy analysis, rather, it reverts to using the default values for the chosen building type.  Is this a bug?  Is it possible that I don't have appropriate admin rights to change a file that stores these values?  Within my revit project file, the changes appear the be latched in, but the energy analysis seems to revert back to default values.  Any advice from Autodesk experts would be greatly appreciated. 

[williambonenberger4596]

I tried this in Revit MEP 2012 and experienced the same problem.  Even worse, if I go further and define a "space type" for the mass zones created for the energy model, then change parameters (i.e. I set the mass zone space types to general high bay manufacturing), I set 2000 SF/person, 1.1 w/SF lighting, the energy model still used the default values of 431 SF/person and 1.7 W/SF lighting in the calculation.  I have reached the conclusion that the Revit "space type" and "building type" parameters cannot be changed from default.  Even though revit lets you change them, and appears to store the changes, the energy model uses the default values for these parameters when performing calculations.  Again, to the Autodesk experts - HELP.  What is going on here? 

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

If you right click on a Revit Icon and select run as administrator, give it a try and see if it will work or not

If it didn't work try to do a 4 wall space and modify it the area per person value, create the report save it and please attach it to your reply

[williambonenberger4596]

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@Alaaeldin_Alsahli wrote:

If you right click on a Revit Icon and select run as administrator, give it a try and see if it will work or not

If it didn't work try to do a 4 wall space and modify it the area per person value, create the report save it and please attach it to your reply

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unable to run as admin.  here is a screenshot of the CEA report comparing run1 (default for "manufacturing" building type) to run2 (modified "manufacturing" to be 2000 SF/person and lighting 1.1 watts/SF)  as you can see, the results are the same for both runs, 23 people (based on 430.6 SF/person and 1.3 W/sf lighting).  Run2 should be 5 people and 1.1 W/SF lighting, but as you can see, it is not. 

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

What do you mean by unable to run as administrator

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

Ask the IT person to run Revit as administrator and see if it fix the issue or not

[williambonenberger4596]

unfortunately, IT support here is not as easy as "asking" for anything.  there is a formal helpdesk process, and they do not, as a matter of policy, grant users "admin" rights to do anything.  our profiles are locked down and the enterprise IT support tells us what we can't do.  It takes days or weeks to get a response for an IT issue such as this one.  can you ask the programmers if admin permissions are required for this to work?  can you run it as "not an admin" to replicate the errors I describe above? 

[williambonenberger4596]

also, even if IT person would run it as "admin", they will NOT grant me admin rights for future use, so that really would not solve my problem if I would need to get my enterprise IT person to run this as "admin" every time I need to run another CEA, does it?

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

Not everytime, but I wanted to know if it works when you have a full access or not. If it works IT needs to give you more access for specific folder. Even sometimes you need to run it once (run as administrator) just over write or create the first xml or data base on a folder and the issue could be fix without giving you more access. So we need to norrow down the issue, since I am not able to reproduce it.

[williambonenberger4596]

Someone at Autodesk support was able to recreate the problem.  Here is an email from Mr Alan Quinn, who advises that he was able to recreate the error.  Maybe he can help you with recreating the error.  He advises that "a defect was logged" and that he was closing my ticket because he "was not able to find the underlying cause". 

-----Original Message-----

From: Alan Quinn [mailto:customersupport@autodesk.com]

Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 11:24 AM To: Bonenberger, William J NAB

Subject: [EXTERNAL] Regarding [CaseNo:09913981.] Problem with Building Type Settings in Revit MEP 2014

Autodesk, Inc. <http://www.autodesk.com>

Bill,

I understand your energy analysis in Revit 2014 is not reflecting the changes you made in Building/Space Type Settings. I was easily able to recreate the issue in 2014 and 2015. Unfortunately I was not able to find the underlying cause. As a result I have escalated your case to development.

Since a defect was logged, and confirmed by development, and I provide this information to you, our workflow is to archive this case. However, the defect remains open with development until the code fix is completed. From a product support perspective, there is nothing more we can do on this case, and therefore, we do not keep cases like this open. If I hear back from development in the coming days I will reach out to you.

Thank you,

Alan Quinn

Autodesk Inc.

[williambonenberger4596]

Mr Quinn also said " a defect was logged, and confirmed by development".  Maybe "development" can assist you in understanding the defect.  It sure would be nice to have a solution. 

Thanks,

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

I am sorry, I completley missunderstood the issue, I thought is related spacing and the feature (Heatin and cooling Loads)

For the issue you escalted, It is been escalted by Alan to the development team. They are working on it. we will keep you posted

For the mean while use spaces and edit them and run the heating and cooling load for now. Or try to export it as xml,Make sure room is touching a roof to be able to upload the xml file to Green building Studio