An easy way to add Roof Guttering.

[Allan Chesney]

Under Plumbing you will find roof guttering (called Eavestrough) but it is difficult to use as you have create each piece to the right length and fit corners.

A much easier way is as follows:

1. Go to the Layout tools and use the line and square to draw a line on the Plan view around the edge of the roof.
2. Turn the roof off in View Filter and then select the line you have just drawn.
3. Shift Click on all side to select it all at the same time. 
4. Now right click and select Convert to and select Members.
5. Under Members you will find Guttering.  Select this and it wall convert all the lines to gutters and it will mitre the corners automatically.

When a single line is used you can't rotate it so that the gutter sits the right way around, but by drawing the line in the opposite direction (Right to left) it will put the gutter the other way around and will still mitre on the corners. 

6. Select one edge of the new gutter, right click and choose Select All Similar.
7. Select Elevate and enter wall height plus a bit more (about half the Facia height) to raise the gutter from the ground to the roof level. While selected you can also go to Properties and set it to the right colour etc.
8. Finally turn the roof back on.

Allan

[jjocsak]

Allan, when I follow your instructions the only choices under "members" are,

1. Construction grade lumber
2. Steel framing
3. Exterior grede lumber
4. I-Beams - W shape

Jeff

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Jeff,

What build number is yours?  I have a version on one PC that is 14.C1.624 and this does not have the Gutter folder under Members either, but build 637 on the laptop does. This version is the one with the Patch, so the Gutters folder may have been in the patch or I may have acquired it from running a trial version of Envisioneer although I did not add it from there.

No matter, either way you can still add it to your catalog using Catalog Manager as follows:
1.  Go to File/Catalog/Catalog Manager.
2.  Select Elements on the top menu and choose Members. 
3.  Scroll to the top if necessary and right click on the Members heading at the top of the Members tree and choose Add Group. 
4.  Give it a name eg Guttering.
5.  Right click on the new Guttering group and select Add Element... 
6.  Select the Gutter profile on the Basic tab. 
7.  On the Details tab tick the two boxes that relate to Mitreing ends, otherwise the guttering will not join on the corners.
8.  Change anything you want on the Appearance tab and close.
9.  Make sure you save the catalog - File/Save Catalog.

Now when you use the Line or rectangle tool, the Convert To/Members will have your Guttering folder with the gutter in it. 

Using the Catalog Manager, you can add any of the profiles shown, add proper fancy shaped crown molding and baseboards or even create your own member design. Don't be over enthusiastic in adding these fancy moldings to your model though, as they will increase the memory requirements of your PC and may slow things down.  These type of moldings can be added to your model in a similar way to the guttering explained above.

For those who may not be confident to create the guttering themselves, I have also attached two BIM files (one metric and one Imperial) that have 3 gutters in them.  If you go to File/Catalogs/Import BIM File, you can add the Gutters folder to your catalog.

Allan

[jjocsak]

Allan, I have the latest version 637.

I did follow through with your suggestion on adding it to the catalog and that worked just fine.
This is something I am definitely going to use, very helpful.

Thanks again
Jeff