Seven Deadly Sins of Revit

As a facility owner with millions of square feet of buildings and dozens of projects going on at any given time, my team and I look at a lot of models and do a lot of QA. We see a lot of mistakes, and we also see a lot of efforts to get around our standards. We also have to live long-term with the consequences of poor work.

Consequently, here are my Seven Deadly Sins of Revit:

1. Faking it - I've seen every type of fakery you can imagine... Detail lines or model lines (it says Model, so that makes it okay, right?) in place of model content. Dumb annotation in place of tags. Drafting lines or CAD in place of schedules. Text hiding actual dimensions.

If you're faking it, you're not just doing it wrong, you're costing yourself time and money by not taking advantage of the efficiencies built into the tools.

2. Importing CAD files - I've seen this listed as a "Best Practice" in some trainings. There are two problems here though. The first is that importing CAD files is a common cause of fatal errors, particularly if they are exploded. The second is that importing a CAD file requires a good bit of prep work and cleanup to do it 'right'. Lots of prep + lots of cleanup + raised chance of a fatal error = Deadly Sin, definitely not a Best Practice.

3. Opening a file in the wrong version of Revit - This one pretty much speaks for itself. If your team is working in 2017, and you open your model in 2018 by mistake, chances are you're going to have to do some rework when you realize you're in the wrong version later.

4. Using Worksets like Layers - This seems to be becoming less common, but I still see it from time to time among less savvy firms. They see something that looks like it can be used in a familiar manner and latch on to it, instead of learning to use the tools the way they were designed to be used.

5. Abusing Model Groups - Model groups are a great tool, but they can be abused pretty easily. One of the more common causes of model corruption is the exclusion of elements in instances of model groups. Model Groups should always be a temporary solution for a design problem, not a long term one. And excluding elements from instances should not be used.

6. Internet Content - Content downloaded from the internet, whether from a manufacturer or a site like Revit City, should always be avoided. Manufacturers always over model their content and add all sorts of whacky parameters that can take ages to figure out. Online libraries like Revit City face similar challenges, and have no QA associated with them, there is absolutely no telling what is inside that content. Downloading content may seem like a time-saver, but cleaning it up is bound to bite you in the end.

7. In-Place Families - 'I'll come back and make a proper family later' is the typical refrain here. There's rarely, if ever, time to do that later though. Build it right the first time, it's faster than having to build it twice. There is a time and a place for In-Place families, most applications of IP do not fit that condition though.