Using Create System Options in Revit for Piping Layouts: A Step-by-Step Guide

In this video, we'll take a look at using the create system options in Revit to lay out some of our piping. But before that, let's go ahead and save our project. Okay, let's go to our Level One piping plan.

And we were working on this library area here. So let's focus on connecting our pipes to this area. What I'd like to do first is go through some section views and take a look at what we have going on.

So I'm going to move this one to about right here. Extend this out. And let's make another one looking in the other direction.

Something like this should be okay. Let's down through. Okay, let's take a look at this one.

First, go to view. We can see if I use my measure tool, we have a ceiling at 10 feet. Now our main is currently at 12 feet.

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But if we run at that elevation, we might have some problems when we get to here with our Branch Lines as we'll be running into this. So I think we're going to be running everything at 11 feet. Let's take a look at the other section.

Pull this down. Okay, we can do another measure tool here from the floor. Yeah, around 11 feet looks good.

Okay, so what we'll have to do first to get everything ready to go is let's go to the Manage tab and your MEP settings. And let's go to Mechanical Settings. Now, under Pipe Settings, look for Conversion.

And our system is Fire Protection Wet. So let's select that. And currently our mains and Branch Lines are set to a middle elevation of 15 feet.

So let's go ahead and change that to 11. And our two pipe types for the main is set to Fire Protection Outlets and the Branch Lines are set to Fire Protection Tees. Let's go on ahead and have both on outlets.

Now Revit doesn't really differentiate too well between our mains and our Branch Lines. And we don't have an option to set our pipe sizes. But we can do that after the fact—we're just going to be using this tool to get a general layout and then we'll manipulate from there.

And as you'll see, it depends on the situation. Generally, you'll want to do things manually like we've been doing. You have your sprinklers laid out first, then you get your mains where you'd like them to be because those are critical.

And then you set up your Branch Lines and arm overs. However, in this case, we'll take a look at the tool and see how we can use it as well. So let's go ahead and click OK.

Now we're in this area of the library. Let's go to this sprinkler here. Click on it.

We're in the Modify Sprinklers contextual tab and you should see a Piping button right here. Let's click that. Our system is Fire Protection Wet, so that's OK.

Now you should see Edit System. So let's click that and Add to System. And let's drag over and select all the other sprinklers that are going to be in that system.

When you're done, select Finish. OK, now nothing's happened yet. We have to go back to that original sprinkler.

Now you should see a Generate Layout button. So let's go ahead and press that and see what we get. OK, so this first configuration, if we look up here, we have a Solution Type, which is currently set to Network and we have four options.

So the first option is not that great because every sprinkler is on its own individual long arm over. There's no branch line. So this isn't quite what we'd want to do.

And the second one. This is a little better, but all of the sprinklers are on straight drops. And we do know we like to have an over-down configuration for that little bit of wiggle room for the installer to be able to put the sprinkler exactly in the ceiling where it needs to go.

But we can edit this later. So this might be a solution that we end up using. But let's see what else we have.

OK, again, way too many long individual arm overs, so we'll pass. This is just a strange configuration that we would only use if there was some severe coordination issues going on. And even that would probably have to be fixed as well.

We'll pass on this one. What about the other Solution Types? If we go to the dropdown, there's Perimeter, which makes a semi loop. And again, many individual arm overs.

So not really the best. Same. Definitely crosses.

We wouldn't be using anything like this. We'll pass on all these. Let's take a look at Intersections.

Again, nothing all that great. So like I mentioned, I think our best bet, let's go back to Network. And that second option, something like this, this is pretty balanced and good.

Now, what we do need to do is make sure we have our over-down configurations. So what we can do is continue to manipulate this from here. So let's go back to Edit Layout.

And if we select this piece, we can actually end up dragging this. So for the sake of example, we'll set all these so that they're at one foot. Again, if I click on this, you should see a dimension to the left.

And I'll drag this till I get one foot. That's okay. And this one, let's go in the other direction.

One foot. Okay, now these ones will probably have to add later to this branch line. So in the meantime, let's go ahead and set this to one foot, might have to zoom in.

There we go. And the last one, let's go down. We'll go one foot.

Okay. And this one here, we'll probably have to connect. So overall, it's not too bad.

When we're satisfied, let's go ahead and select the Finish Layout. Okay, we'll delete these dimensions. That's all right.

Now, the first thing you'll notice, like I mentioned, if we zoom in, go ahead and hit escape first, then select on a piece of pipe, you'll see that every piece of pipe is a half inch diameter. We definitely do not want that. So what we're going to have to do now is start manipulating our pipe sizes and connections, but we're in a good spot going forward.

So in the next video, we'll keep going with this area.