Phasing Best Practices

Let's talk about Revit's phasing system and how Revit thinks about phasing and the best practice way to approach modeling phase projects. So here we are in the mechanical existing plan. So that's mechanical, working, existing. And we see the architectural background. We have no mechanical stuff modeled yet.

And we see these walls, and we see that the phase of this view is set to existing, and the phase filter is set to show complete. Now let's hop over to the working new work plan, Mac New Work o one. We can see that the background is different. You can see the existing walls are dashed. The new walls are darker.

And the phase of this view is new construction. That makes sense. And the phase filter is show previous plus new. So there's only two phases in this project, existing and new construction. And so what this is saying is it's saying show the previous stuff plus the new stuff.

Now if we come up to a sheet view for demo, demo floor plan o one, we can see the existing walls and we can see the walls to be demolished, and we're not seeing the new walls. And the phase is set to new construction, and the phase filter is set to show previous plus demo. Okay. This is gonna start to make sense the more you stare at it. And as we do some modeling, it'll make even more sense.

But these are the things to be looking at and understanding. So before we do modeling, I'm gonna show you the global settings for phasing. So if we go to the manage tab, phases. So these are the project phases, existing and new construction. You can create more projects with, you know, phase one, phase two, phase three.

This is where you would do that. As as MEP, we pretty much just copy whatever the architect does. Then if we come to the phase filters tab, this is defining what happens based on what your phase filter is. So if you look down here for this view, which is the demo plan, the phase filter is show previous plus new. So if we look at show previous or sorry. This says show previous plus demo. We come to show previous plus demo. This is saying that it's going to not display new work. It is going to graphically override. We'll get there in a second.

It's gonna graphically override existing work. Demolished work is also gonna be graphically overwritten, and temporary stuff is going to be not displayed. Temporary stuff is elements that are both created and demolished on the same face. And then if we come over to graphic overrides, this is where you set the global view settings for things. So this demo stuff is being dashed in a little dark because it's picking up these a little a little thicker and dashed.

Okay. So those are where those settings are. Let's model some stuff, and this will help make sense of this. So I I recommend that you basically do what I'm about to do, play around with this and get familiar with how Revit thinks about phasing. So let's say we wanna model a bit of duct, some existing stuff, some stuff to be demoed, and some stuff new construction. The first thing to do is come to the existing plan, and let's just model some ducts. So d t for ducts. Elevation looks fine. Yeah. I'll use that.

And here is some existing ductwork. And let's say we have a tap here. It's also existing, and we have a tap here that's existing. And we have some other tap. Okay. So this is all this is all of our existing stuff. Let's come over to the new work floor plan. You can see that it now is being overwritten to show how we're showing, existing work. And let's model some new ductwork. So I'm gonna say d t again.

Gonna make sure that I'm at the correct elevation. My diameter and my type is everything I want. I'm going to right here. So this is a new tap that I'm tapping into my existing trunk with. You know, we could do a new one over here. You know? Yada yada yada. K. And now let's say that I want to demolish this branch and this branch. And let's say that I wanna I want to end this main here, and I want to demolish the rest of the stub that's going out here.

How do we accomplish that? Well, first for this, I need to add a I need to segment this. So I'm gonna use the I call it slice. It's not slice. It's split.

But the keyboard shortcut is s l, and just add a add a slice where you want it. K? So we've added that slice, and then we are going to come to the demo, floor plan, and we're going to select that bit of duct there, and we're going to set the phase demolished to new construction. Since we're in the demo plan, it's gonna override it, and it's gonna show the demolished line type. And let's say we want this tap to be demolished as well.

We change the phase demolished to new construction, changes it to demo, and, you know, let's say we wanted this one as well. Well, let me show you another way of doing it. There is a demo. There's a hammer. You can literally click things, and that that literally sets their phase to their phase demolish to the phases you're on.

It's it's the equivalent of selecting these and changing the phase demolish. So use the hammer or just select the elements and change them to demo. And then if we go back to new work, you can see that the demo the the stuff that's to be demoed is no longer showing up because in face filters, we don't wanna see demo work on our new work plan. We are seeing just the new work and the existing work. We come back to existing.

We see all of our existing stuff. Existing plans typically don't go on sheets. One thing to note is that when you tap in with new stuff, it shows the taps even on the existing phase. It's a little annoying, but I think that's just kind of how it goes with Revit. It's a little less bad on the actual floor plans.

So as you can see, it's it's a little more subtle. So it's not ideal, but it's still there. In fact, actually, that that might actually kinda make sense because if you're gonna demo a tap, you're gonna have some marks there. So, actually, maybe that that does make sense. At any rate, that is how the phasing system works and how you should approach modeling on it and how you should approach the phase filters on it. So to recap, model existing work on the existing working floor plan. Come to the new work working view to model new work. Go to the demo floor plan to select existing elements and set them to be demolished. Okay. That's pretty much it.

And, if you want to tweak how it's actually displaying, you come to manage phases, graphic overrides, and you can fiddle with these until they look the way you want. Okay. That's it.