Ceiling grid placement rule to not have small pieces at wall

[HVAC-Novice]

For aesthetic reasons ceiling grid should be laid out so that no cut piece is less than 1/2. Obviously in non-rectangular rooms there may be smaller pieces somewhere. For example, a 2x2 ceiling tile should have no piece smaller than 1' in a rectangular room. 

However, the way Revit places the grid always gives me small pieces and I need to manually move the grid by 1' to get it right. that way i need to manually correct every single ceiling. I realize there will be occasional need for correction, but not for all ceilings. 

Is there a way to change how it places the grid by default default? i read somewhere it places a grid intersection in the center of the room. but even if i could change that behavior, it would not help all the time and before placing i don't see which option would be better. 

[barthbradley]

Compound Ceiling? You can move the grids by selecting a grid line and nudging it using the arrow keys.  All the grid lines will move in unison.  Is this what you mean? Or, are you looking for rotation? You can do that as well.  Same method. 

Note: Material Surface Pattern must be a MODEL Pattern.  

[ToanDN]

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@HVAC-Novice wrote:

Is there a way to change how it places the grid by default default? i read somewhere it places a grid intersection in the center of the room. 

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What you read is correct and there is no way to change the default placement. 

Different designer layout ceilings differently.  It also depends on other things such as lighting fixture and ceiling mounted devices arrangements.  You just need to manually align the grids how you want them.  Aligning model patterns is as easy as it gets.

Here is an example where less-than-half tiles are actually desirable.

[barthbradley]

You can easily get what you want, if model your suspended ceilings using Sloped Glazing (Roof).  That's our approach.  

It's better BIM too.   Panels for ACT and Mullions for framing.  

[HVAC-Novice]

circling back to this after 4 years. Sorry if this is out of context now. Googling brought me back to my own thread 🙂

I looked into using the sloped glazing. Some initial issues appeared:

- unlike ceilings, roofs can't be placed automatically. One has to manually draw the roof

- Like for ceilings, I only can center the grid line. but not if the middle of a tile is the center of the room

One surprising and positive is that those "roof ceilings"  also seem to adjust when I move the wall. I'm using R2024 and it must have been a recent feature that a ceiling will adjust when you move a wall. I didn't expect that for the roof since that was manually placed. 

You say using the roof is better BIM, than using the ceiling. I understand it would give me actual grid elements and panels. Grid Ceilings just seem annotative. So there probably is an advantage f you want to count or schedule the actual tiles etc. but could you elaborate why it is better BIM? 

Do you also use the roofs for drywall and other "non-grid" homogeneous ceilings? Or do you use "ceilings"  for that? 

Before I change my way, I think I need to understand more of the consequences of not using actual ceilings. . Obviously this has impact on schedules, tags etc. i also wasn't sure, if now, after 4 years, you may do things differently.