Changing Pipe Slope in Revit

[advandes]

I have created a pipe run and add a slope to the pipe, perfect! But wait, the slope is in the wrong direction, oh simple, there is a tool called Slope Control Point, awesome, but wait, it's greyed out and I can't change the direction. HELP please. Thanks, Aaron

[advandes]

Added screen capture. Not sure that will help, but there it is anyway...

[fabiosato]

Hello,

Place your mouse over one pipe segment, press TAB key until all pipes and fittings are pre selected, select them all and the slope control won´t be greyed out.

[advandes]

Fabio... Thanks for the reply, but your answer is exactly what I have been doing and for some reason, and not always for a run of pipe the Slope Control Point will indeed be greyed out. I did figure out the solution though... If the pipe run Slope Control Point is greyed out cancel out and re-highlight the pipe run and select Justify. In all cases so far the control point under this command is not greyed out and I am able to change the position of the slope successfully. I hope this can help others who run across this issue. Thanks Again..Aaron

[Anonymous]

My pipe seems to slope the wrong way no matter which control point side I pick.  Doesn't make sense.  Please help.

[Anonymous]

Hei.

I think I found answer - you have to start in the begining, first element - the highest point - use justify/control point and change direction then go to next element and do the same  - its working in my project. 

[Gustavo.ValenteDias]

Has anyone found a solution for this? The way the software behaves makes no sense at all. Tks!

[RobDraw]

Messages 4 and 6 both state similar solutions. 

[iainsavage]

I'm pretty sure that if you have sanitary pipe and its connected to either a plumbing fixture or stack then it will always slope down towards the stack and you don't have the option of reversing the slope.

This tutorial might help:

https://customersuccess.autodesk.com/learning/course/building-mechanical-design-ductwork-and-pipewor...

[DZimmerKVJT2]

Calling that a solution is a bit overly generous, don't you think?

Besides, it doesn't work in 2024. There is no (simple) way to change the slope direction. Anything more than a few clicks is unnecessarily complex for this binary parameter. it's either sloped -> or sloped <-

like a quantum bit, i suppose there is a third option of no slope. But even when i model them all with sloped turned off, this doesn't work.

[iainsavage]

You keep posting comments about sloped pipe not working and despite being told various ways of doing or amending sloped pipe you just keep complaining.

I also, contrary to what you say, cannot detect any difference in behaviour in 2024 compared to all of the previous versions (2015 onwards) that I've used.

In part 9 I posted a link to a tutorial on using sloped pipe, maybe it will help you.

[DZimmerKVJT2]

Start at the highest point and redraw the entire system yes, treid and that does work.
Pipe deflection can work but creates other problems. I'm looking for a consistent method similar to how any number of other softwares work,\
I'll never understand why some people will defend it so fiercely. There are fundamental differences in how it behaves year to year. My previous employer wouldn't allow sloped pipe until 2024. Current one we just don't but not like a rule.

[iainsavage]

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@DZimmerKVJT2 wrote:
There are fundamental differences in how it behaves year to year.

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What are they? I don't detect any difference.

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@DZimmerKVJT2 wrote:
I'll never understand why some people will defend it so fiercely. 

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I'm not defending it, and certainly not "fiercely", I just point out that I have successfully used sloped pipe in various versions of the software and when the slope feature "fails" it is almost always due to a particular fitting family which is not flexing to accommodate the required slope.

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@DZimmerKVJT2 wrote:
Start at the highest point and redraw the entire 

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I don't think I ever told you to do that. You can draw pipe sloping up or down.

[RSomppi]

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@DZimmerKVJT2 wrote:
I'll never understand why some people will defend it so fiercely. There are fundamental differences in how it behaves year to year. 

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Who is defending it and what differences are you seeing?

Sloped pipe in Revit is difficult and always has been, especially for those that don't have to do it regularly. It is not user friendly and some sort of training or self learning is necessary in developing workflows. Just experimenting and hoping to figure it out leads to frustration for most. Once you learn "what Revit wants" and develop workflows that are suitable for creating systems. Editing them gets easier. Editing a system that hasn't been drawn correctly is especially frustrating. "Garbage in garbage out." As with a lot of things, sometimes it is faster to recreate than modify bad modeling.

[HVAC-Novice]

I don't' think Revit necessarily makes it more difficult. It is just people not having the 3D imagination and slopes are inherently hard. I even see some youtubers (that generally do good Plumbing Revit videos) just ignore slope and have shorter runs being horizontal. And obviously people coming form AutoCAD and paper design didn't use slope in 3D.

I'm not saying Revit couldn't improve. But sometimes the problem is in front of the computer (myself included).

I diligently use the actual slope. Only issue I came across is on very short runs a slope over 1/8"/ft didn't' work with the fittings. It works on longer runs. So for the short run I hack it and use  1/8 "instead of 1/4 ".  I'm sure if I dig into the fitting, there is a way to solve it. Otherwise any slope problem I had was a  "me" problem. 

[RSomppi]

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@HVAC-Novice wrote:

I don't' think Revit necessarily makes it more difficult. It is just people not having the 3D imagination and slopes are inherently hard. I even see some youtubers (that generally do good Plumbing Revit videos) just ignore slope and have shorter runs being horizontal. And obviously people coming form AutoCAD and paper design didn't use slope in 3D.

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That doesn't make sense at all and I totally disagree. If you aren't using slope in 3D, you are taking shortcuts and possibly making coordination inaccurate. May as well be doing it in 2D.

[HVAC-Novice]

I agree. And it goes against  "model it like it will be built ". But that is what I saw in many YT Revit videos. Videos that otherwise were pretty good and sophisticated.

Last year I attended a very good plumbing design class. I learned a lot... but I also learned that most attendees and instructors still live in the 2D World and also use what they call  "one line diagram" where they don't show the pipe having a size. So they cant' see if it physically fits (like a thin 1mm line instead of actually showing 4 "diameter). and the few people who actually used Revit, basically don't' use any of the  "I" in BIM and use it like a 3D drawing tool and only because the architects use Revit. 

I'm not saying I have all statistics. But when we hire a design team, I noticed the architects, mechanical and electrical engineers have professional designers with an education in the field and a license. For plumbing, they almost always have  "someone " who just has it done forever without any formal license or education. At least in our area, Plumbing is a bit a step child. 

People on this forum are a self-selected sub-section of the design World. If you see this forum, you think everyone uses Revit, actual pipe size, and slopes. But many small (and large!) projects are done by people not on this forum. 

[RSomppi]

That stuff sounds like things people say when it gets too difficult to learn to do it right. If you're using these "facts" as excuses to not do it right, then you've given up.

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@HVAC-Novice wrote:

People on this forum are a self-selected sub-section of the design World. If you see this forum, you think everyone uses Revit, actual pipe size, and slopes.

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@HVAC-Novice wrote:

But that is what I saw in many YT Revit videos. Videos that otherwise were pretty good and sophisticated.

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Who would you trust?

(I'm so done with all the excuses for not wanting to model correctly.)

[HVAC-Novice]

I'm only reporting what I see and hear people do. I'm NOT saying those people are correct or their habits should be emulated.

I agree they use excuses. They fear change and don't' want to learn new things. 

I myself try to model as true to real life as possible. That includes the correct slope and size of pipes.

[DZimmerKVJT2]

Okay again, it should NOT be difficult. Far more sophisticated software offers much easier functionality, fewer quirks. I'm starting to take offense to the 'garbage in, garbage out'. That's a term my 18 years of modeling experience in dynamic modeling, hydraulic/hydrologic modeling, in Finite Element Analysis. It doesn't even apply to revit. There is no wrong way to enter STATIC data.
It's only "wrong" because they've allowed such a small window to get it to work. What it 'Likes"? What it likes doesn't matter. Sure, my car will run longer, smoother if I treat it how it likes. But it still runs for a decade or longer no matter how I treat it.
Revit isn't some spoiled princess that we should feel blessed just to use. It's a bully demanding it to be done forgetting who is in charge. WE are in charge.
Autodesk kinda forgot that and was reminded by a SCATHING letter from industry leaders. I can't even easily ADD CUSTOM TEXT to an individual tag! I can scale a symbol! If I want to add any extra info to a smart tag, it requires a whole new family or submfamily or whatever tf it wants. But If I do that, I get scolded because some one else might mistakenly use that elesehwere.
I can understand what they INTEND for it do, but they continue to forget this is IRL. Our templates can't work well bc it's different every project. Not just every client.

Eventually we can agree to disagree. This computer programmer / engineer has gone into great detail to demonstrate just how bonkers it can be.

I expect this will get me banned but it should be read by any professional planning on using revit:

@DZimmerKVJT2 -this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation