Explore the process of connecting a building's first and second floors with a duct system in the BIM 321 course, Introduction to Revit MEP. Learn how to choose the right duct type, set proper dimensions, and understand the importance of VAVs in regulating airflow.
Key Insights
- The course demonstrates how to use rectangular ducts with mitered elbows and taps for optimal connection in a two-floor building.
- Setting the correct dimensions is crucial, with examples given such as an 18 x 12 inch duct set at a 10 feet offset.
- Understanding the role of VAVs (Variable Air Volume boxes) in regulating airflow from the air handler unit connected to the thermostat is essential for proper duct installation.
Welcome back to the CAD Teacher VDCI video course content for the BIM 321 course Introduction to Revit MEP. In the previous course, or in the previous video, excuse me, we went ahead and put in our error registers for both the first and second floor. Now we want to go ahead and start connecting this all with a duct system.
So, we're going to be using the duct up here, obviously, so I'm going to go up here to duct. And because we use a mechanical template, there are already a lot of different options we have. We have some oval duct, we have some rectangular duct, and we have some round duct.
The duct that we're going to want to go ahead and use is going to be the rectangular duct, mitered elbows, and taps. Again, mitered elbows and taps. So I'm going to pick there.
Let's go ahead and take a look at some of these, the properties of this real quick. I'm going to go to my edit type. And as you can see here, we have a roughness, we have routing preferences, and identity data.
We could pump in the different identity data from the manufacturer, all those other kind of things. Let's go ahead and look at the routing preferences really quickly. So please go ahead under routing preferences, click edit here.
%20(1).png)
Learn Revit MEP
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
So what's happening is that we have these different, this is how it will automatically route. So as we connect ducts to each other, this is the preferred junctions or preferred elbows. So obviously, our elbow is a rectangular elbow mitered standard.
We have a preferred junction type of a tap. A junction is the regular takeoff. We have a cross transition, multi-shape transition, multi-shape transition, another multi-shape transition, and a couple of other different items here.
So because we're using the mechanical template, it automatically sets all of this up for us, which is very nice. So I'm going to go ahead and just hit OK to say I'm done. I'm not going to change anything there, but I wanted to show you guys that.
So let's talk about how we start to draw duct in. Now, duct is very easy to draw, but one thing that we have to kind of be wary of is exactly what we're going to be drawing. If you look up here in our options bar, you can see that right now I have an 18 x 12 inch duct.
Eighteen will be the width across my screen. Twelve inch would be almost the depth going into my screen. Then I have set my offset to 10 feet.
If you would please go ahead and change your width to 18 inches, your height to 12, and your offset to 10 feet. If 10 feet is not in your list, just go 10 feet, enter. You can change it in the options bar here, or we can change it here where it says offset.
To go ahead and start placing our duct, all we have to do is I'm going to find the location where I want to start the duct. This little X right here is the shaft opening that will eventually, our ducts will run up to the roof. So I'm just going to go ahead and pick about right here.
I'm going to drag, and as you can see, it's starting to draw my duct. Pick here, and I'm going to drag all the way up until my last air register here, and pick about there. I'm going to go ahead and hit escape to say that I'm done.
Now we need to go ahead and start populating in the different taps into the different rooms. We do have to keep some things in mind. One of these things is going to be that we need to establish what are called our VAVs, and those regulate the airflow from the air handler unit that connects to the thermostat.
We're going to have one tap into each room, and then we'll tap off of that. I still want to go ahead and use my 12 × 18 for these larger rooms, so I'm just going to go ahead, as you can see, I can find the center line here. I'm going to go ahead and pick about right here, and I'm going to bring this over to about there.
I'm going to go ahead in this room here, come up to about here, and bring it over and tap it into this room here. There we are. What we're eventually going to be doing is putting a VAV in there, but I also want to go ahead and do the rest of these ducts here.
I want to go ahead. Let's change our width from an 18 inch to a 12 inch. We want to go 12 × 12 because we don't necessarily need such a large duct going into here.
I'm going to go ahead, pick here. I'm going to line up with that, pick about there, escape to end the chain, come back up here, pick, pick, escape to end the chain, come up here, pick, pick, escape to end the chain, come up here. Again, I'm just using the center line of the previous duct there to there.
I'm going to go ahead and place this one about here, and then I can go ahead and hit escape to say that I'm done. That's really all there is to placing ducts. I'm going to go ahead and stop this video here.
In the next video, we're going to go ahead and start placing in our VAV units and then connecting everything together. I'll see you then.