Stair railing issues

[evansTSMR]

Using Revit 2016, I'm  having the following issues with stair railings:

1. If the railing is created using sketch lines, (as opposed to "Place On Host"), there are cases where it is impossible to create a railing that follows the slope of the stairs - it just comes out horizontal. THIS OCCURS REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE SKETCH LINE IS MOVED "INSIDE" THE STAIR, or created by selecting the inside of the stringer with the "pick lines" tool, or aligned with the stringer using the align tool, etc., and regardless of when in the process you select "Pick New Host" and select the stair. If the railing is defined with extensions, both ends get only a 12" extension (not "plus tread width"), as if Revit thinks both ends of the railing are the top. This occurs most frequently where a stair run consists of two risers and one intermediate tread, but it has also occurred on runs with more than one tread. This malfunction is not rare - it occurs at least 10% to 20% of the time.

2. Railings that get created automatically along with a stair terminate at the first riser. At the bottom, if you edit the railing and add a segment equal in length to one tread width in order to create a transition to a guardrail or another stair run, Revit complains that "the rail is not continuous." It will form the railing, but there is usually a malformed joint somewhere along the path.

3. Where railings are defined with extensions and returns, the return is sometimes properly formed (mitered) and sometimes not. The malformed return is two pieces of railing sliced by planes perpendicular to their axes and meeting at their centers, forming a "notch" at the outside corner. Such a handrail is obviously not compliant with code. Again, this occurs randomly, but in a significant percentage of cases.

4. If a railing needs to consist of several segments (some sloped and some flat), Revit sometimes refuses to believe that the sketch lines are connected at their endpoints regardless of how carefully one uses the editing tools (i.e., extend/trim, osnap overrides, etc.) and gives the error "railings must be one single sketch...if you want multiple railings, etc." In such a case the railing has to be cobbled together from separate pieces, which of course do not join smoothly.

5. Again in the case of a railing with extensions and returns, when formed, sometimes the railing protrudes into the stair (as intended), but sometimes it's mirrored, protruding outside of the stair (into an adjacent wall if it's there), and has to be flipped using either the flip control or the "Flip Orientation" item on the pop-up menu. There seems to be absolutely no consistent logic or rule one can follow (like always start at the bottom and draw towards the top?) to insure that the railing is formed properly.

The management in our office has been slow to adopt Revit and has approached it warily and fearfully - it's been an uphill struggle for me to convince them of its benefits and problems like those I've described aren't helping. As you can imagine this is very destructive of productivity - the massing tools that enable one to make gourd-shaped buildings are nice and all, but I will never need them, whereas EVERY SINGLE building I model MUST have exit stairs, and sometimes a large number of them.

So - what am I missing here? Is there some kind of "stair railing survival guide" somewhere? The documentation only seems to deal with a fantasy world where everything works properly and as expected, and doesn't address any of the anomalies I've described above at all. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael Evans

[martinTstewart_Adsk]

Hi Michael,

Wow, sounds like you’ve been digging into this. Stairs and railing creation can get a bit frustrating – especially if they don’t always behave how one might expect. I don’t have a single “stair railing survival guide”, but I have several references and resources listed below. I hope they help. Some you may have seen before.

BTW, as far as a Revit “stair railing survival guide”, that sounds like an awesome idea for an Autodesk University 2017 class! If you present a class so entitled, I will sign up and be in the audience!

The challenge is probably one of three things:

• Revit 2016 doesn’t have the exact functionality you’re looking for.
• Or you’ve yet to find the exacting workflow to get you there.
• Or a combination of both.

Stairs and railings are usually improved with each release of Revit. So Revit 2017 will perform better in some regards than 2016. And we’ll look forward to seeing what’s in Revit 2018.

If you have recommendations for improving Revit, please post your insights and suggestions to Revit Ideas.

For some further learning resources and additional how-to tips:

AR18637: Handrail Hacks

AB4841-V: Stairs and Rails in Autodesk Revit 2013: A Practical Primer

AB2086: What's New with Autodesk Revit 2013 Stairs and Railings?

Create a Railing by Sketching

Taking the Mystery out of Revit’s Stairs and Railings

Lynda.com Revit 2017: Essential Training for Architecture (Stairs)

Misc. Videos on Revit Stairs and Railings

I hope that helps. Have fun. I’ll watch for your class at AU 2017!

If my reply was helpful, please give a "Kudo" or click the "Accept as Solution" button below (or both).

[evansTSMR]

Martin,

Thank you for your faith in my ability, but I think I would need to attain far more mastery over Revit railings before I could presume to teach a class about them! I don't think it would be to anyone's benefit to come to AU and just hear me recite my litany of railing failings...Thank you for your reply. I did look at the links, but they mostly fall into two categories: (1) elaboration of the existing documentation telling how railing creation is supposed to work, or (2) demonstrations of exotically beautiful tour-de-force creations by true railing gurus. I'm not really looking to be able to create achingly elegant Blumcraft-of-Pittsburgh railings, I just want quick justice for my exit stairs, which are enclosed by 2-hour walls and never meant to be seen except in emergencies. For these, the OOTB railings are fine (except that they require ADA extensions, and that part I did manage to figure out).

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything out there telling users what to do when Revit railings DON'T behave according to the documentation, which is what I'm experiencing. I suspect your second bullet point is close to the truth - I haven't discovered the right workflow to make railings work with 100% reliability. I do have to admit I harbored the hope that if someone from Autodesk replied, the reply would run something like, "Esteemed user, our development team has been made aware of the issues you noted and has found and corrected the errors in the underlying code that were causing them. Railings generated from sketch lines placed at the inside edge of the stringer and hosted to the stair will now always follow the slope of the stair, etc., etc." Admittedly, I haven't had the chance to try 2017, so maybe this has already happened - but your statement that stairs and railings are "usually" improved with each release..so Revit 2017 will perform better "in some regards" than 2016, leaves me with some doubts...but of course I won't know for sure until I actually try 2017.

I guess I need to approach this with a healthy dose of patience, as Tolstoy counseled: "Бог правду видит, да не скоро скажет." (God sees the truth, but waits.)

Thanks again,

Michael Evans

[ToanDN]

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@evansTSMR wrote:

Using Revit 2016, I'm  having the following issues with stair railings:

1. If the railing is created using sketch lines, (as opposed to "Place On Host"), there are cases where it is impossible to create a railing that follows the slope of the stairs - it just comes out horizontal. THIS OCCURS REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE SKETCH LINE IS MOVED "INSIDE" THE STAIR, or created by selecting the inside of the stringer with the "pick lines" tool, or aligned with the stringer using the align tool, etc., and regardless of when in the process you select "Pick New Host" and select the stair. If the railing is defined with extensions, both ends get only a 12" extension (not "plus tread width"), as if Revit thinks both ends of the railing are the top. This occurs most frequently where a stair run consists of two risers and one intermediate tread, but it has also occurred on runs with more than one tread. This malfunction is not rare - it occurs at least 10% to 20% of the time.

This is fixed in Revit 2017.

2. Railings that get created automatically along with a stair terminate at the first riser. At the bottom, if you edit the railing and add a segment equal in length to one tread width in order to create a transition to a guardrail or another stair run, Revit complains that "the rail is not continuous." It will form the railing, but there is usually a malformed joint somewhere along the path.

This is also fixed in Revit 2017.

3. Where railings are defined with extensions and returns, the return is sometimes properly formed (mitered) and sometimes not. The malformed return is two pieces of railing sliced by planes perpendicular to their axes and meeting at their centers, forming a "notch" at the outside corner. Such a handrail is obviously not compliant with code. Again, this occurs randomly, but in a significant percentage of cases.

This is not fixed.  It always happens when a sweep changes direction off-plane, example below.  You can see all other conditions are okay because those sweeps are in a single plane.  

This particular condition can be fixed by adding a small segment on the same plane with the sloped handrail, but horizontal, before turning the direction.

4. If a railing needs to consist of several segments (some sloped and some flat), Revit sometimes refuses to believe that the sketch lines are connected at their endpoints regardless of how carefully one uses the editing tools (i.e., extend/trim, osnap overrides, etc.) and gives the error "railings must be one single sketch...if you want multiple railings, etc." In such a case the railing has to be cobbled together from separate pieces, which of course do not join smoothly.

I haven't tested this yet.  But from the overall Revit 2017 railing experiences, I think it may also be fixed.

5. Again in the case of a railing with extensions and returns, when formed, sometimes the railing protrudes into the stair (as intended), but sometimes it's mirrored, protruding outside of the stair (into an adjacent wall if it's there), and has to be flipped using either the flip control or the "Flip Orientation" item on the pop-up menu. There seems to be absolutely no consistent logic or rule one can follow (like always start at the bottom and draw towards the top?) to insure that the railing is formed properly.

Not sure about this one.  Since the fix is rather easy with the flippy thing, I would give it a pass.

The management in our office has been slow to adopt Revit and has approached it warily and fearfully - it's been an uphill struggle for me to convince them of its benefits and problems like those I've described aren't helping. As you can imagine this is very destructive of productivity - the massing tools that enable one to make gourd-shaped buildings are nice and all, but I will never need them, whereas EVERY SINGLE building I model MUST have exit stairs, and sometimes a large number of them.

So - what am I missing here? Is there some kind of "stair railing survival guide" somewhere? The documentation only seems to deal with a fantasy world where everything works properly and as expected, and doesn't address any of the anomalies I've described above at all. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael Evans

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