topic Re: Downspout in Revit Architecture Forum

Downspout

yes_and_no — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:13:25 GMT

Guys, I always have trouble with downspouts.

A. I created simple, no turns, generic wall base family with "type" ref height. I wanted it to be under Roof property, says "Downspout", where I can change it colors by Project Parameter. But Roof category is not even available.

B. When insert to Rv, it snaps to the walls alright, but it won't lock to the ref level automatically (ground level), making more time to complete the task.

Q: how to solve A and B ?

Happy holidays.

Re: Downspout

RDAOU — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:41:34 GMT

@yes_and_no

Roof category is only available in the model...If you want to schedule as a roof...You can do the following:
- Start an Inplace model and select Roof Category
- Place the component in and finish inplace
If you want it to lock to Levels, you can model it using a Column Family or generic 2 Levels based family which locks to Levels. One cannot have it all. Nonetheless, a Wall/Face or Workplane based should be more than fine with just the height parameter to be change!!!

Re: Downspout

ToanDN — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:39:21 GMT

Why roofs category? I would create it as a line based generic family, or a wall based generic family, or a 2-level based generic family. I would even consider creating it directly in the project as Plumbing pipes.

Re: Downspout

barthbradley — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 22:32:30 GMT

Sounds like you are having a great deal of difficulty with the one you have. What about just downloading and using a another one? For instance, this fairly typical downspout (from Revit City) is fully parametric:

Re: Downspout

yes_and_no — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:13:12 GMT

This is exactly the one we are using right now. Won't snap both to wall and base level, no way to know instantly where it is on roof plan.

No trouble, just want to work faster with smarter family.

Re: Downspout

barthbradley — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:19:47 GMT

Set the Roof Plan to Wireframe View. That make it easier?

Re: Downspout

barthbradley — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 01:01:15 GMT

Actually, I'm not that impressed by that family. I'd use another one or rebuild that one. If I were to rebuild it, I'd place all the Ref. Planes outside of sketch mode and add Ref. Lines for Angles. I'd drive all the RPs and RLs with Labeled Dimensions and align/lock all the extrusion sketch linework to those RPs and RLs. I'd also make all the Parameters Instance-kind, so that I could tweak placed instances of it in the Project using shape handles.

FWIW.

Re: Downspout

syman2000 — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 16:50:00 GMT

You can use mechanical pipe to draw your downspout. However Revit treat the join and turn as each pipe segment. So I would just use default family created by manufacturer to keep it simple. See attached.

Re: Downspout

barthbradley — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 18:27:22 GMT

@yes_and_no wrote:
no way to know instantly where it is on roof plan.

What was the reason for this? Not knowing where it is on the Roof Plan?

Re: Downspout

pdent2 — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:10:56 GMT

I'm bumping this old thread because we always have a need to offset (slope) downspouts parallel to the building face. All the downspout families I've seen only have offsets perpendicular to the building face. In the past we have used model-in-place but I'd like to get away from that. We have a perfectly good scupper/downspout/splash block family, and I tried removing the scupper and splash block, keeping everything else the same, but it can't be rotated from vertical. I'm not much of a family editor guy--what am I doing wrong?