REVIT MODELING GUIDELINES FOR COMPLIANCE & ANALYSIS
With today’s energy code requirements, and our new analysis tools, it is helpful to build a clean and legible Revit model so it can be used to help in establishing compliance.
Primary Concerns:
An easy way to think about this is in regards to materials. We don’t spec the same materials for interior and exterior applications, so it’s important to differentiate the exterior walls/windows/doors from the interior walls/windows/doors in our models.
If you follow the below guidelines, your model can be used to show compliance with the energy code and COMcheck, to analyze the energy efficiency of your project through Sefaira, and to export your model to Trane Trace for mechanical calculations.
BASIC MODELING REQUIREMENTS
Add Project Address and Set True North
Fully enclose the architectural model by floor, wall, window, and roof elements.
Accurately mark Walls as either Exterior or Interior in Type Properties.
Create Exterior and Interior types for doors and windows.
Create wall and roof systems and detail them with the components and their individual R-values.
Create a room schedule. Delete rooms that are “Not Placed” and enclose rooms that are “Not Enclosed.”
Use worksets to obtain accurate Building Square Footage
Use Copy/Monitor when there are elements in another model that need to be included in area calculations
With today’s energy code requirements, and our new analysis tools, it is helpful to build a clean and legible Revit model so it can be used to help in establishing compliance.
Primary Concerns:
- Fully enclose the architectural model by floor, wall, window, and roof elements.
- Create Exterior and Interior Types for Walls, Doors and Windows so that the Thermal Envelope can be isolated.
- Place non-building elements (such as sidewalks and site work) on a separate workset.
An easy way to think about this is in regards to materials. We don’t spec the same materials for interior and exterior applications, so it’s important to differentiate the exterior walls/windows/doors from the interior walls/windows/doors in our models.
If you follow the below guidelines, your model can be used to show compliance with the energy code and COMcheck, to analyze the energy efficiency of your project through Sefaira, and to export your model to Trane Trace for mechanical calculations.
BASIC MODELING REQUIREMENTS
Add Project Address and Set True North
- See “Project Address” and “Set true North” web pages
Fully enclose the architectural model by floor, wall, window, and roof elements.
- Do not use floor elements for roofs or canopies.
- Do not create multiple walls to represent one wall assembly because this will overestimate the exterior wall area.
- integrate wall sweeps into the wall assembly.
Accurately mark Walls as either Exterior or Interior in Type Properties.
- Create separate glass types (i.e. exterior glazing, exterior spandrel, interior glazing, etc) in the material library.
- Create separate curtain wall and storefront systems for use on the exterior and the interior and label them as such in name and Type Properties. Also set the Curtain System Panel in Type Properties to either the exterior or interior glass material.
- Create a wall schedule with the fields: Area, Family, Type, Function. Ensure the function is correct for each wall type.
Create Exterior and Interior types for doors and windows.
- Allows elements to be categorized as Exterior or Interior in the schedules.
- Allows isolation of the Exterior elements for Code Analysis and Energy Analysis Software
Create wall and roof systems and detail them with the components and their individual R-values.
- Do not sum the R-values as this is not usually the correct method for determining system R-value.
Create a room schedule. Delete rooms that are “Not Placed” and enclose rooms that are “Not Enclosed.”
- Use ALL CAPS for room names and number rooms logically
Use worksets to obtain accurate Building Square Footage
- Place non-building elements such as sidewalks, parking lots and on a separate workset
Use Copy/Monitor when there are elements in another model that need to be included in area calculations
- For example, precast walls in the Structural Model can be Copy Monitored into the Architectural model to achieve accurate wall area calculations.