Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

[david nicholson-cole]

In the building regs in the UK, there are a series of step changes in the regulations between now and 2016 requiring more and more insulation. This is trailing behind Germany, Austria, Switzerland where the insulation standards have been higher for longer, and the PassivHaus standard is the target for the future. I would venture to say that cavity filling is now preferable and more common than the designs in ArchiCAD's standard composites for cavity walls which seem to be a thin layer of insulation with a cavity.
I know that its easy enough to make new composites, and that pro users will build Templates with their choice of Fills... but shouldnt some of the new standards be included in the standard Archicad as it starts up?

For example, I want to build in loadbearing wall, the same as in my house, 112 brick, 100 cavity filling insulation, and 100 block (plastered). I am happy to spend a few mins building this, but i hope its standard in AC 13.

[Anonymous]

I haven't encountered any problems yet!

Any extra points on a surface seem to be ignored (in terms of poly count) if they are perfectly in-line (planar) and the edges between assigned the same material, but I agree it is best practice and more reliable to reduce unused nodes if possible.

I also believe you can be too clever sometimes and try to do too much with one profile. I much prefer to split it down to its component parts. I find it just easier to manage and you get much more reliable joining. Visibility on plan is also easier to control.

[Link]

Laura wrote:
When Complex Profiles was a new feature, I remember having problems with profiles containing numerous nodes -- when editing the profile, nodes were often "left over" from where fills once met, creating a number of extra nodes on what would be a planer surface -- I assumed that "extra nodes" meant "extra polygons", which is why it was causing problems (model slow-down, walls not joining correctly) -- I eliminated any extra nodes, and eliminated the problems.

Have you had any problems modeling brick walls in this manner?

This is similar to what Karl reported here.

Maybe the problem has been solved?

Cheers,
Link.

[Laura Yanoviak]

Link wrote:
This is similar to what Karl reported here.

Ah -- interesting -- thanks, Link. I remember the extra nodes causing problems, but this was when AC10 was new and I was working on a building with complex geometries (all sorts of abstract angles joining in different ways), I haven't had problems with Complex Profiles since.

[Anonymous]

If we're straying into wish lists for walls then one we have is that you can create a wall based upon brick/block dims. AND have it visible and accurate when you drop a section through the wall.

if i'm understanding this comment correctly, this is possible by creating a new fill with the appropriate course dimension and assigning it to the composite wall leaf or cut section fill HOWEVER it will appear in both sections and plan (where you have it set to one of the options that shows a cut fill). this could be relatively easily rectified (i would think) by differentiating plan cut fill and section/3d cut fill in the wall settings dialogue box.

being able to lock wall height dimensions to multiples of the unit coursing you are using would be useful, i guess, but it would need to be easily toggled on/off on the fly (much like the orthoganal direction lock).