Question to the users: Do you use RTLCA in real-time?

[MarkLabrosse]

Hi everyone

I wanted to ask a question that is directed more to all the other users of RTLCA, not to the development team

How do you guys use Real-Time LCA in your daily practices?

We currently say that an LCA takes 20-30 hours to make with RTLCA, depending on the complexity of the project. However, our colleagues ask why our LCA’s can’t be made more real-time with RTLCA. We see 3 things that prevents us, from making calculations in near real-time.

1) Material layers lacking in our Revit models

We see that there is usually is a lot of data that we can’t retrieve directly from the Revit model, e.g.

• Reinforcement of concrete constructions
• Timber- og steel joists between insulation layers
• Wet room membrane
• Vapor barrier
• Plaster and paint, etc.

So when we make an LCA, we go through each Type and add whatever materials might be missing according to a bygningsdelsjournal (don’t know what that’s called in english). This also means that our colleagues need to make their bygningsdelsjournal earlier that usually, which makes the project more expensive.

2) Lack of quick overview of the material take-off from Revit

We also think that it is hard to get a quick overview of the quantity take-off in RTLCA in the moment - especially since you can’t see the thickness of the materials. I also talked about this problem in this thread:

View information in branch

Hi team I have another feature request, which would lighten the process for us users significantly. Right now, you need to click on each material to see the underlying data. [image] It would be very useful, if this data was visible in the tree structure, like illustrated below. [image] It would make it easier to see if the quantities area correct You would be able to check, if you’ve entered the correct service life time (especially handy in the materials view) If you want to add an extr…

So we have this excel spreadsheet, where we can calculate the thickness of a material from RTLCA using the area and volume, we can calculate how to input extra material layers, convert reinforcement from kg/m2 to kg, etc. This process is time consuming.

3) How manually added material layers are managed when exporting a new Revit model

Another problem is when e.g. a wall has changed name in the Revit model. If I re-upload the model, it removes all types that don’t exist in the model any longer. So the old wall is delete, BUT if I have added extra layers manually, these are kept in the model, and I need to find them manually and delete them. And as those extra layers aren’t moved over to the “new” wall type, they have to be added manually again.

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So all in all, there is still a lot of manual work involved in our LCA’s even though RTLCA saves us time, which brings us back to the original question:

How do you guys use Real-Time LCA in your daily practices?

Do you also make detailed LCA’s like this - also for the earlier stages? Or do you just make a quick LCA without adding materials manually and absorb the difference with a buffer or something?

Hope that people are willing to share their experiences so we can become better together