Stepped Handrail on Stepped Stairs in Revit

A couple of years back I posted on how to create a stair with stepped sides. 

 

I always intended to follow it up with what happens to the handrail, and how to solve it?  Well, it is never too late.
 

Just in case you are wondering how to create the stepped side to the stair run in sketch mode - here is a trick for creating a DIY array in Revit.

When you create a stepped boundary for a stair run, the handrail also becomes stepped, but it is pretty clunky.

Baluster Placement

The first thing to notice is the hideous baluster placement - it is placing one at each change of direction, and one (or more) in the middle of each segment.

To tidy it up:

• we will probably have to create a new railing type (to avoid messing up the straight railing on the other side of the stair
• then edit the railing type properties; and the baluster placement
• Untick the checkbox for 'Use baluster per tread on stairs'

•  Balusters will only be placed at ends of each segment

Alternatively you could try the opposite: keep the Baluster per tread, but remove the start and end balusters - but then you lose control of the baluster locations in the segments running parallel to treads (not centred).

Top Rail Properties

You may not like the clunky Art Deco look of the vertical "Gooseneck" handrail segments, so the first step is to tab-select just the top rail (not the whole handrail) - then look at its Type properties

• Change the Transitions from 'Gooseneck' to 'Simple' (or None)
• Revit will give a not very helpful "not continuous rail" warning:

• Whichever you choose (Simple or None), you get 'None', as Revit has a headache and thinks it is all too difficult, so it simply can't be bothered to join the segments

Edit Railing Segments

The next thing to try is editing the whole railing path:

• Select the handrail
• Edit the path
  

• Select the first path segment at the base of the stair
• Check its properties, displayed on the Option Bar
  

• Change the Slope from 'By Host' to 'Sloped'

• Finish the Sketch

• Nothing appears to happen to the railing slope!  We will solve that later.

• Edit the path again

• Select the next segment that should be sloping (3rd from end)
• Change its Slope to 'Sloped'

 

This is getting tedious, so let us try a couple of shortcut:

• Instead of finishing the sketch to see how it looks, you could try the cool new Railing "Preview" feature in the ribbon menu (in a 3D view)

 

• Tick the Preview checkbox
  

• Aaaargh - it does not work when you adjust railing segment properties! It does not show the adjusted slope property.  You still have to Finish the sketch to see the effect

•  Edit the path again

• Select several segments to change their Slope property

• Aaargh - the properties are not shown on the Option Bar when you select multiple segments!
  

• Change the Slope properties for every alternate segment - one by one!

• Finish the Path sketch
  

Something is wrong with the overall height of the railing when compared to the straight railing on the other side of the stair.  

• This can be checked in an elevation view
  

Height Correction

To solve this, one way is to change the Height Correction property of each segment:

• Edit the railing path again
• Select the first segment
• Change its Height Correction property to Custom; with a value to match the riser height

• Finish the Path sketch

• The railing height is now correct (more or less)

• The lowest segment is now sloping

• Check it in elevation

 

Now who has a headache?  Not just Revit!

This is a crazy amount of work to do in order to get this sort of correct.

Of course, you could avoid all this by just putting in a straight diagonal railing, but the point of this blog is to demonstrate the problems with stairs and railings - and to show workarounds (however nasty they may be).   There may also be situations where the diagonal railing is not appropriate - perhaps where the stepped sides are much larger steps.

 

 

 

 

Rustic Railings in Revit

There has been a lot of talk over the years about just how hard the Revit stair and railing tools are to work with.

I decided to do an experiment - and see how long it took to build an actual stair and railing vs building the same thing in Revit.

I chose to build a rustic-style stair as it was outdoors in a wild garden setting.

Rustic Stair and Railing Hackathon

I thought I had better give Revit a fighting chance by not zeroing in on one of Revit's biggest railing weaknesses:  "Baluster Spacing"

• So I decided not to include any balusters at all.  

Technical Details

• The stairs were made from hand-hewn sandstone, with irregular shapes and slightly differing tread widths;  riser heights were near enough the same for each step.  Stones were carved to exact size and placed without mortar - exactly how the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Aztecs et al worked their stone structures.
  

• Railing was made from locally sourced Melaleuca timber - hand-cut on site:  Two posts and one 'Top Rail', all sourced from the same tree.  The top post and handrail were left to cure in the open for several weeks;  the lower post was cut and installed the next day.

• The handrail was fixed to the posts with tuppenny nails.

• Real stairs and railings were built without any drawings - I couldn't wait for those to be finished.
  

• The virtual stairs/railings were created using the "New" stair tools (post Revit 2013) & the "Old" railing tools (circa v2 with minor improvements in v2013)
  

Finished Product

The finished stair and railing

Unfortunately I don't have an image from Revit, because it was created in a later version that I could not open with my current version of Revit.

The Stats

• The real stair took approximately 18 months, done a few hours at a time at weekends.

• The real handrail was build about a year later - it took approximately 2 months, again done at weekends.

• The virtual stair took 5.5 years, including waiting time between Revit versions - hoping that problems encountered had been fixed in the next version.

• The virtual railing is still unfinished, awaiting software improvements.
  

Problems Encountered

• The lower railing post was obviously installed too quickly after cutting, as it started to sprout a few weeks later (inadequate curing time).

• I really struggled with applying the virtual stair hand-cut stone materials to the treads, especially in 2D plans.

• Without any balusters on the virtual railing, the 'Building Inspector' would not give approval to the railing.

The Winner

Hands down winner was the real stair/railing:

• It was so much easier and quicker to build the real thing than attempting a virtual model.
  

• It was very therapeutic working manually on the stone and timber at weekends after a hard week of Reviteering.

• It was ever so slightly less therapeutic grappling with the virtual tools for stairs and railings in Revit.

 

1st April 2021 (Australia).

Revit Stair Wall Joins in Section

Following on from an earlier post about joining stairs and floors, I just wanted to clarify what happens when you try to join Stairs and Walls in section . . . .

We saw previously that Revit does have some limited capability to join stairs and floors at the base of a stair - but it has many limitations.

Joining a Wall and a Floor

All good Revit users would know that if a floor and a wall are of the same material, and they have coincident or overlapping edges, they can be "joined" in the model.  This is not just a graphic tool that is done per view - it affects the model in potentially all views, including material quantity schedules.  If an overlapping wall and floor are joined, the volume of material that was previously counted twice is corrected after the join so it is counted once.

Join Geometry

Select floor and wall to join

Floor and wall are joined

Providing that the elements are of the same material, the line between the floor and wall disappears.  In this example, the 'Level' line is revealed, as it happens to align with the top of the floor.

Joining a Wall and a Stair Landing

 

Try the same thing with a wall and a stair landing . . .

What happens?  Absolutely nothing.  After selecting the wall, Revit will not even highlight the stair landing (or vice versa if you select the landing first).

Well, that is just plain ridiculous!  You might argue that the wall and landing would be cast separately on site, so there should always be a joint line between them - but the graphic convention is to not show a line, or at least show a thinner line between them in section.

 

What to Do?

There is no good workaround to this problem - each method is clunky and not robust.

Linework Tool

Linework Tool

If you try the linework took, you immediately discover that it will not do the job for you, as it affects the whole wall.

That isn't very helpful, as you only want a small segment of the wall edge line to be invisible (or thin line).

Another strange Revit quirk with the linework tool is that when you select a line in elevation (or projection in plan) it gives you blue dots at each end , which can be dragged so that only part of the line has its style overridden.  That is a very useful capability - but infuriatingly, it does not work on cut lines.

Yet another quirk is that the underside of a run is treated as one line when cut (section), but in elevation, each step is a separate line segment.  Why, or why?

Filled Region

Filled Region

A common method of hiding a multitude-of-sins in Revit is to use Filled Regions.  These have pros and cons:

• They are quick and easy to understand for most users

• Their edge lines can be of different styles, including "invisible" as part of the sketch - so they hide model lines underneath 

• They will merge with underlying element hatching , providing the material hatch style matches the filled region hatching

• They are view-based, so any patching up on one view will not show on other views

• Line edges/junctions can be messy when viewd close-up

• If the model is changed, the filled region will not change with it (unless you constrain the sketch lines, which is not generally advisable - as your model very quickly becomes over-constrained and unworkable)
  

Cut Profile

Cut Profile (View Menu)

You could try the 'Cut Profile' command - this allows you to modify how an element looks in a particular view.  Once initiated, it takes you into sketch mode - so you can draw a shape to add to an element (or cut from it).

The end result is not very promising in this situation

• The added shape does not obscure the wall line in the way that a filled region does
• The sketch lines cannot have a line style (unlike Filled Regions)
  

The worst thing about this idea is that the Linework tool does not work at all on cut-profile shapes - thus making this tool almost useless!

Conclusion

Sadly there is no clever workaround.  The conclusion is that it is not worth fighting Revit on this one - just accept the joint line between wall and landing.  In many cases it is not an issue, but when the stair and wall are both cast in place concrete, it is very annoying.

Revit Stair-Floor Joins in Section

The inability of Stairs to properly join to floors (or other elements) in Revit has long been on the wishlist of things for Autodesk to fix.  Back in v2014, we were very excited when Autodesk included this in the list of enhancements to be released.  As per many recent Revit enhancements, this was only a partial improvement.

You can be the judge as to whether it was "fixed" but most Revit users are not even aware that anything changed in version 2014, such was the hit-and-miss nature of the improvement . . . .

Join Geometry - Stairs in Section

At the base of a stair, if a concrete monolithic stair sits on a concrete floor, you would expect to be able to join them, providing they are of the same material.

Well, you can  . . . .  sort of.  It only works if the stair base is sitting exactly on the slab . 

Join Geometry

The circumstances in which it works are limited, as you can see below:  

• If the base of the stair overlaps the floor at all, it won't work - the join is ignored.

• OK, you wouldn't normally lower your stair like this as the base riser height would be wrong

•  But you might extend the run lower, by selecting the "Run" (not the whole stair) and changing its 'Extend Below Riser' property

•  The join still does not work

• So why would you want the stair to overlap the floor?

• Well, maybe you have a screed on the floor slab, and you want the concrete stair to rest on the slab, not on the screed.

• With the stair sitting on top of the screed, the join does work, although it shows a thin line due to different materials - but the structural geometry is not what you want
  

• As soon as you lower the base of the run, the stair cuts through the screed as it should, but the join stops working - there is a heavy outline between the stair and the concrete slab (same material).
  

• Many experienced Revit users might want to separate the structural slab from the floor finish (screed) - particularly when producing 'concrete setout' drawings or when collaborating between architects and structural engineers.

• The concrete slab could be set down by 50mm (screed thickness);  

• Extend the run 50mm below the finished floor level;

• Join the stair and structural slab 

• Add a separate floor on top of the slab - just containing the finish (screed)

•  Not surprisingly the finished floor will run through the stair
  

• The stair will obviously not join properly with the floor finish as they overlap each other
  

Workaround

• Just for due diligence, I thought I should test the process by trying to join the stair and the floor finish
  

•  This time it actually gave a warning, saying that they cannot join

• Much to my amazement Revit did actually join the stair to the floor finish, exactly how it ought to - despite the warning !

• Just to make sure, I had a look in 3D - and it really had cut out the floor finish - albeit with a permanently attached warning in the list.
  

• I think I could live with that warning, along with the hundreds and thousands of other spurious ones that we are unable to remove or flag as not significant.

Edge of Slab Join

In some situations, the bottom of the stair could meet the edge of the floor slab

• Obviously the stair run needs to extend below until it meets the slab edge

• Join Geometry ought to merge the two elements
  

• Apparently it does not.

Workaround ?

Oops, sorry I don't have a real workaround for this one.

You could try using the linework tool with invisible lines, but that has annoying limitations:

• In section, the linework tool does not have grip handles at the end of selected cut lines - it makes the whole line invisible [Lines that are in surface/projection in the view would hav grip handles so that you could make part of the line invisible]

Then you would have to add detail lines back to the missing parts of the cut edges.

Top of the Stair?

What happens at the top of a stair when you try to join it to a floor/landing?  That is a whole different story, for another blog post . . . .