Learn how to establish a vent system using Revit MEP, and discover new concepts and methods that can assist in making your design work more efficient. This article will guide you through the process of adding connector elements to your system, changing fittings, and managing system types correctly.
Key Insights
- When working in Revit MEP, different views offer varying capabilities. If you encounter challenges in one view, such as the plan view, try switching to a section or a 3D view to achieve your desired outcome.
- Adding connector elements to fittings, such as the plus sign in Revit MEP, can expand and enhance your system. This feature allows you to transition a bend into a T-shape or other forms by adding a connector element or changing the existing fitting.
- Creating and managing different system types in a section view tends to yield better results. If you're splitting things up between different systems on the same pipe run, ensure you're in a section view for better control over connectors and system types.
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We, in the previous video, went ahead and finished up connecting our system. And now we kind of have just one more system to really create, which is going to be our vent system.
Now, this should be pretty simple, pretty straightforward to go ahead and create. And I'm going to show you what we're going to end up doing because it's going to introduce some new concepts and some new things.
The one thing I will say with this, though, is these again—and this just kind of goes for Revit MEP in general—is certain things happen in certain views; certain things work a certain way in certain views. If what you're trying to do is not necessarily working in a plan view, I would give it a try in a section. I would give it a try in a 3D view.
And sometimes that can actually do what you want to do. I'll show you what I'm talking about here, but we need to go ahead and establish our vent system. So, on the toilets and the lavatories—we're going to talk about the classrooms a little bit later—but on the toilets and lavatories, what I'm going to end up doing is: if you select one of these fittings, you'll notice that there are a couple of plus signs on the sides here.
Now, what those plus signs actually are is because this bend can transition into a T or something else. So, I can say I want to add a connector element, or I want to change this fitting over here to be something else. So, what I could end up doing is if I take this plus sign and I click plus, I can go ahead and notice it adds that in there.
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Right? So, I'm going to go ahead and go all the way down this plus and do that for all these T's that are here, because this is going to allow me to go ahead and do this. So, there—go to my second floor—and this is pretty simple to do in 3D. So, you know, when we automatically created the system, or when we put the pipes in initially, it put bends in.
Now we want to expand on that system. We're adding some connector elements to this. There we go.
I'm going to go over to here. I've already done these three here, so we're good there, but make sure to click on that plus sign. You can do this with any kind of fitting that you want to.
The urinals—we're going to do something different, and we will touch on that. I'm going to go ahead, just because of how they're built. I'm going to go ahead and orbit around.
We already kind of have our fittings here, but I want to delete this top portion of pipe. When we modeled that vertical, we kind of gave it this pipe. The problem with that pipe is it’s going to be on the sanitary system automatically.
We want to delete it because we're going to go ahead and change it. Once something is—once this pipe is kind of assigned—I can't change it, if you notice. So, I can't change it from sanitary to vent or whatever.
So, what you want to go ahead and do is delete those portions of the pipe above the fitting. So there's that. This one—we don't need to do the little plus sign; it's already been there for us again.
Sometimes working in 3D can be a little rough, but it's working pretty well. So there's that. And if you feel like you just need to select one, delete; select one, delete.
That's perfectly fine. I'm just picking more, but if you select one, delete; select one, delete; select one, delete—perfect.
Now that we've deleted those and we've added the other fittings onto our toilets, we really need to do this in section. Let me show you why. If I go over to Systems and I go to Pipe, I'm going to check my pipe.
I want it to be two-inch. Everything there is good. System type: Vent.
That's fine. That's what I want it to be. Make sure you pull down and choose that system type.
When I click on the connector here, it works. And then it goes up because my level was set to Level 2 here. So, it goes up.
And let's just say I draw this—let's see here. So, you go to Pipe. It's saying Level 2.
I could say Level 1 if I wanted to. And let's say I want to do like a six-foot elevation there. And then here, notice how it continues that sanitary system up until this portion here.
Now, I don't necessarily know why—technically, this should be classified as a vent—but when I come into my section view, and let's go ahead and go back to our section view here, I'm going to go ahead and pull it down over here so I can see this pipe. I'm going to do the same exact thing.
I'm going to go to Systems. I'm going to go to Pipe. I'm going to go to Level 1, middle elevation: six feet.
That's fine. I can make it—let's make it nine feet. And I have it set to Vent.
When I click here, come up, go over, go there—notice, and if I go into my 3D view, it's a vent from that connection. So, this is kind of just one of those weird things that Revit does. I don't have an explanation for it.
Unfortunately, what I would say, though, is that if you're going to be splitting things up between different systems on the same pipe run—or different system types—what you want to go ahead and do is actually make sure that you're in a section view. It tends to work better there. It has to do with all of the connectors and everything that are in this guy here.
