Following my series of posts on Walls and Window to Wall Ratios, I will shift gears and take a look a Floors in the context of energy modeling in Revit and Autodesk Insight 360. Again, looking at these various parts in detail, separately, should help to better understand how simple, yet powerful Revit and Insight are.
For today's example I will use the model from my Residential Design using Autodesk Revit 2018 textbook. This book is the #1 Revit textbook in the education market in the USA.
Notice the various floor conditions in this cutaway view of the model.
- Regressing to walls, for a moment, notice the difference between the foundation walls adjacent to occupiable space (i.e. basement area) versus unexcavated space.
This model has three of the four possible floor conditions.
The main-level floors are all defined at Slab on Grade floors. Only the garage floor is technically slab on grade, but for the EAM this means any floor at grade (as defined in the Energy Settings dialog).
Finally, the basement floors are automatically defined at Underground Floors.
The fourth analytical floor type not represented here is Raised Floor, which is a floor open to the air underneath.
Keep in mind it does not matter how the Revit floor is defined in the model, including the Function setting (Interior or Exterior). If the floor is inside the building, it is inside the building. The EAM algorithm figures that out on its own. The only setting that does matter, in terms of defining the EAM, is Room Bounding; when un-checked, the element will be ignored and is thus not part of the EAM.
- Tip: Un-check Room Bounding for walls around a trash enclosure so they are ignored (sorry, went back to "walls" again).
Stay tuned for more on the floors in Revit's EAM and in Autodesk Insight 360.
For more on surfaces in the EAM, take a look at this About Surfaces in the Energy Model.
