Sloped Piping Tool 09 Release

[Anonymous]

Kyle or anybody else...

I am having trouble getting the sloped piping tool to work. Fairly simple setup...6 floor drains that are arranged three next to three with a header line inbetween them. I started out laying the piping flat and then trying to use the sloping tool. I then select the floor drains and use the connect into command, then I select all the piping and try using the sloping tool and get an error that not all the pipes could be sloped. It did slope the main trunk line but it will not let me slope the branch lines from the main to the floor drains. The floor drains connect into the main line using a double y fitting. I have also noticed that I am unable to connect floor drains that are directly across from each other (opposite sides of the main line) into the main line using the connect into command. I am able to use the connect into command on one floor drain and then manually draw pipe to the other after I change the tee fitting to a cross.

any thoughts/suggestions....

thanks

john

[KyleB_Autodesk]

My brain hurts trying to visualize this scenario, could you please post an screen capture or something?

Thanks,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager
http://inside-the-system.typepad.com/ Message was edited by: Kyle B [Autodesk]

[Anonymous]

Kyle,

Here are a couple screen shots. I have not changed the "crosses" to the "double y" fittings in this example, but the same thing happens. I selected all the piping and then used the slope tool. The center line sloped correctly, but I got 6 warnings about piping not being sloped. Each of the six branch lines (floor drains to the center line) will not slope using the slope tool.

thanks

john

[Anonymous]

Top view

[Anonymous]

Kyle,

This picture shows the floor drains being offset from one another on either side of the main line. The sloping tool works correctly for this arrangement, but the drains are not usually placed in this type of arrangement.

thanks

john

[KyleB_Autodesk]

Thanks John, much clearer. I'll take a look at this for you.

Cheers,
Kyle B

[Anonymous]

I ran into this as well laying out a flat sanitary system, and when I apply slope afterwards, it changes my y-fittings to tee's. Maybe I'm doing the order incorrect of what pipe and/or fittings should be selected when applying slope. What is the best practice?

Thanks,

Scott Brisk

http://revitmep.blogspot.com/
http://autocadmep.blogspot.com/

[Martin__Schmid]

I would suspect that this is because the tees and cross fittings don't flex out of plane.. I.e., there are no parameters/constraints that allow the fitting to be not-flat. If you look at the standard cross fitting, there are parameters for Angle 1 and Angle 2, but these are for the angle of the fitting relative to the main 'branch' in-plaine... there are no params to make the connectors slope out of the plane, which would be required to connect in from the side at a slope. Easier said than done, and saying it wasn't easy :(. Perhaps there is other content to address this scenario?

[jmabrey]

Exactly. This is my one big problem with the plumbing in MEP. I can live with the incorrect dimensions for sanitary fittings since we draw all plumbing in one line, but when you can't slope a pipe out of plane of a fitting, it makes it incredibly difficult to connect everything. Perhaps if the "Pipe Connector Tolerance" (found in Mechanical Settings) worked in the z direction, and not just x and y, we would be able to connect sloped pipes into both sides of the double wye as is seen in 90% of plumbing designs.

-Jon

[Anonymous]

Here in Minnesota, the State Plumbing Plan reviewers won't let us use or show a double wye or cross because of this issue (even though we know that the branches can be sloped at the first joint). We would always have to put a wye adjacent to another wye.

[vewright]

All--

Revit Plumbing has a long way to go.

General comment--credibility would be much higher if the plumbing tutorial resulted in a workable sanitary waste and vent system. To wit, the tutorial still creates a sanitary waste system in which the fixture branches--urinals and water closets connect into the side of the main. That is not the way it works. Fixture branches connect to revents--vertical pipes that run between the waste line and the vent line.

Another general comment--you can't make a double wye work in a horizontal main the field, and there is no reason to try and make it work on the screen. Plumbing designers draw them, but plumbers ignore them. The problem is that the two side openings are horizontal, but the branch piping that connects to those openings is sloped, at least at 1/8" in 1'. As the main gets deeper, the branches are either run at a steeper slope, or they drop in from the top, in which case the plumber substitutes a sanitary tee or a single wye on its back. Or, he can use two single wyes, and point each one up at the desired angle.

What is wrong with layout paths? If I draw a series of floor drains, put them in a system, and open the system editor, one of the solutions is a main directly under the line of drains, with each drain dropping directly into a straight tee. A floor drain has to have a trap. The floor drains in the floor drain family are drain bodies only. You have to use a p-trap in conjunction with a drain body. You can buy a drain with an integral trap, but the outlet is on the side, not the bottom. Furthermore--the only way you can connect a floor drain directly into a main (with trap) is to dedicate that main to floor drains. And, then, the last drain has to be on a vent stack. If the floor drain is in a system with other fixtures, it has to be connected to a vent stack, or revent, or individual vent.

As I have mentioned several times before--isometrics. The sanitary waste and vent riser diagram is probably the most important drawing in a plumbing submittal. That's what the reviewer spends the most time on, and that is where he wears out his red markers. We need tools to draw isometrics directly, or to draw the plans in such a manner that the riser diagram is generated automatically, in a form that will pass plan review.

[vewright]

Here are two screenshots. Layout paths setup 1 shows the system. There are four floor drains, each with a p-trap. The pipe elevation (mechanical settings) is set at -2'-0". The base is at -4'-0". The solution shown is the most reasonable. Finish layout produces the error message shown in the other screenshot.

What gives? I had the slope set to 1/8" in 12". When I received the error message, I changed the slope to 0" in 12", but got the same error message.