Revit: Embedded Sill/Sweep

In this Instructable I show how to put an embedded sill into a brick wall and then put that brick wall into a stacked wall. I was recently working on a project at work in which I needed to place a sill (the kind that you find under windows), but without the window in this instance. I searched the internet and couldn't find anything that was able to really help me. I'll make mention now that I'm still fairly new to Revit and don't get much opportunity to delve too far into it. I was able to play around with Revit and find a solution to my problem and thought that I'd share it with others in case someone else has a similar question like I did. I'm sure that there is a different/better way to do this and whatever that way is, I'd love to know it, so please leave me a comment if you know of a better way.

This is also my first video Instructable that I have attempted and I'm afraid that I'm not very good at either, so you're dealing with a beginner. The software I was using wasn't as awesome as I initially thought and didn't have as many edit features. The sound gets a little off towards the end and the movie tapers off and ends abruptly. Rather then redoing it, I thought that I'd post it anyways, because it has the main ideas. Again, feel free to leave comments.

Step 1: Video

You can watch the video embedded the video I uploaded to Instructables, or you can watch the same thing on YouTube.

Because the video ends before I finished, I'll tell you what I did for the rest. After I changed the wall type in the stacked wall I viewed it in 3D to verify the change. And that's it.

Go to the next step if you'd like to see a written out explanation of what I did in the video.

Step 2: Create a New Profile

The first thing you'll want to do if you're embedding a sill into a wall is to create a custom profile of your sill. You can do this by creating a new profile.

• Click the Application Menu (the colored R in the top left corner of the screen) and hover over "New" and then select "Family".

• You'll be asked to load a template first before you begin creating your new family. Scroll down until you see the family template that is labeled as "Profile". Select and open it.

You should see two intersecting green dashed lines. These are your reference planes. It's important to remember that generally the intersection of the dashed lines will be the placement point for your family, so depending on where you're placing your object will depend on whether you need to draw the object above the horizontal lines, below them, and/or to the left or right of the vertical line.

• Let's draw a window sill. The one that I drew was very simple. Click on the create tab and then select "Line". I started in the center of the intersection and drew a line down 1', left 1'-6", up 5", and then closed the line by going back to the center. Then I selected the midpoint of the diagonal line, drew up to the reference plane and then back to center.

You'll need to set the Family Type and the Profile Usage of your profile.

• In the properties bar change the "Profile Usage" to "Wall Sweep".
• Along the top of your screen, click on the "Family Type" button in the Properties Section. It looks like the component button with four blue squares in front of it.
• Select "New" Under Family and label is as something like "Custom Wall Sweep".

It's important to remember that you can't draw a profile that isn't one closed loop. In order to make this profile, we will need to trim some of our drawing. Use the trim command and trim off the interior portion of the diagonal line.

• With the profile in a closed loop we can then add it to our project. Click on the "Load into Project" button on the top of the screen.

Step 3: Section View of the Wall

With the profile loaded into our project, we can now add it to a wall. But first, you'll need some walls to add it to.

• Click on the "Wall" tool and draw a brick with metal stud wall and a stacked Brick over CMU w metal stud wall. I drew these perpendicular to each other as you can see in the image. I also turned on shading (it's the little 3d looking box on the bottom of your screen) to make the colors turn on. The wall on the right is the brick wall with metal stud and the one on the left is the stacked wall.
• Select the brick wall and click on "Edit Type" in the properties box.
• The "Type Properties" dialog box will open. You'll want to duplicate the wall that is currently being used, so click on duplicate and rename the wall.
• Then click on "Edit" next to "Structure".
• The "Edit Assembly" dialog box will then open. In the bottom left corner there is a "Preview" button. Click this button. A preview window should open adjacent to the "Edit Assembly" dialog box.

You'll notice that some of the buttons that are just above the preview are grayed out. This is because your preview is set on a floor plan view. You'll need to change this view to a section view before you can use these buttons.

• Click on the drop down menu next to "View" and select the Section view.

Step 4: "Sweeping" the Wall

If you look at those grayed out buttons, they should be active now.

• Select the "Sweep" button.

You'll be taken to the "Wall Sweeps" dialog box. You'll notice that there are not any sweeps listed. This is because you don't have any active sweeps in your drawing yet. If you happened to save your profile in a special place you can click on "Load Profile", browse to it, and load it, but for me, I didn't save it and just loaded it into the project, so I selected Add. A default wall sweep is then added to your wall.

• Change the default to the name of the sweep that you just created. If you didn't save it, it should be called something like "Family1".
• Make sure that the "Cut Wall" check box is checked. This allows the the sweep to cut into the wall; otherwise the wall will just be modeled as going through the sweep, which can't happen in real life and doesn't make sense.
• Change the height of the sweep to how far you want it placed, and make sure it's referenced to either from the base or from the top, depending on your needs. In this example it's from the base 3'-0".
• Click OK when you're done.

You can see in the preview window that the sill is placed into your wall, but it's backwards. Selecting "Flip" in the "Wall Sweep" dialog box flips it along the x-axis, so that doesn't help us. The only way that I could find to fix this is to go back into my profile and move it there.

Step 5: Fixing the Profile

• Go back to the profile you created.
• Mirror the profile across the y-axis.
• At this time you can also move the profile in to whatever length you'd like. I drew a reference plane and then moved it to 6".
• Reload the profile back into your project.

At this time you'll get a message that pops up that tells you that the family already exists and what you'd like to do. We don't have any parameters associated with this family, so you can actually pick either one. If you had parameters associated with it, you'd probably want to pick the bottom one. Now when you look at the wall, it should be placed correctly.

Step 6: Adding a Sweep to a Stacked Wall

Now, let's add the sweep to the stacked wall.

• Select the stacked wall.
• Click on "Edit Type" and duplicate the wall again.
• Click on "Edit" which is next to "Structure".

The "Edit Assembly" dialog box will appear. This shows what walls make up the stacked wall and what order they are in. You can also change specific heights of walls here.

• Change the "Exterior - Brick on Mtl. Stud" to the name of the duplicated brick wall that you did back in "Section View of the Wall".

When you do this it will update the stacked wall and put in the wall that you just created. It's worth mentioning, that you'll want to make sure that your "Offset" is set appropriately. Because the CMU wall and the brick wall have the same core, a Mtl. Stud. You'll want to change this offset if you have different cores and depending on where you want the wall to end up.

• Click OK and check the 3D view to see your work.