Construction Check

Overview

Every construction has two defined sides: side A corresponds to the first layer of the component assembly, side B to the last. On exterior components, side A conventionally lies inside (room side) and side B outside; on floor slabs between storeys, side A is the floor (bottom) and side B the ceiling (top). If a surface is assigned to the wrong side, the layer assembly is computed the wrong way round in the simulation. The Construction Check panel visualises the side assignment and the plausibility of the combination of construction usage type, surface inclination and boundary condition type — and corrects orientation errors automatically on request.

Opening the panel

Activate the Building mode in the mode toolbar, then select the Construction Check page in the property area. The scene switches to the component-orientation colouring mode.

Colouring modes: Validity and Detailed (A/B)

Behind Mode: two displays are available; the floating legend in the scene is titled Component orientation:

• Validity — each surface is coloured according to the check result of its component link: Valid (green), Warning/Other (yellow) for an inconsistent combination of usage type, inclination or boundary condition, and No component (grey) for surfaces without a component link.
• Detailed (A/B) — surfaces are coloured according to their assignment as Side A or Side B in the two orientation colours of the colour scheme.

Check rules of the validity colouring

The surface inclination is divided into three classes: roof/ceiling (0–60°), wall (60–145°) and floor (over 145°). A component link is considered valid if both geometry and boundary condition type match the usage type of the construction:

Usage type	Expected inclination	Expected boundary condition type
Exterior wall	Wall	Exterior or adiabatic
Exterior wall (ground-coupled)	Wall	Ground
Interior wall	Wall	Interior or adiabatic
Storey ceiling / basement ceiling	Ceiling or floor	Interior or adiabatic
Floor slab	Floor	Ground
Pitched roof / flat roof	Roof (side A)	Exterior or adiabatic

In addition, VICUS Buildings checks the side assignment: for floor slabs between two rooms, side A must lie at the bottom (floor) and side B at the top (ceiling); for roofs, the roof surface must be assigned to side A. Constructions without a defined usage type are always classified as a warning.

Visibility filter

The Visibility group shows or hides entire check categories — one row each for Valid:, Warning: and No component: with the buttons Show and Hide. This allows, for example, all valid surfaces to be hidden in order to work only on the remaining problem surfaces. The visibility change is undoable.

Swapping and automatically correcting orientation

The Orientation group acts on the selected surfaces with a component link (the header shows their count):

• Assign side A / Assign side B — aligns the component links so that the selected surface corresponds to the respective construction side; the sides are swapped if necessary. Both surfaces of the same component may not be selected at the same time.
• Automatic assignment — checks, for each selected component link classified as invalid, whether a side swap would make it valid, and swaps only in that case. Components that are already valid remain unchanged; the number of corrections appears in the undo step.

Assigning a matching construction

The Assign matching construction… button in the Construction group determines the expected usage type from the surface inclination and boundary condition type of the selection (whereby flat roof applies up to 10°, pitched roof 10–60°) and opens the construction database already filtered accordingly. If the selected surfaces have different usage types (e.g. wall and floor mixed), the action is aborted with a note. After the assignment, the side assignment is checked automatically and — if only the swapped orientation would be valid — corrected right away.

Construction preview

If all selected surfaces have the same construction, the panel shows their layer assembly as a cross-section with labelled sides, e.g. Interior (A) / Exterior (B) for exterior walls, Floor (A) / Ceiling (B) for floor slabs, Floor (A) / Basement (B) or Ground (B) for ground-coupled components. If all selected surfaces lie on the same side, arrows mark that side in the preview. Above it, a status line summarises the construction and usage type — green for a valid assignment, otherwise with listed warnings such as “Surface inclination does not match the wall construction (expected ~90°).” or “Boundary condition type ’…’ does not match the usage type ’…’.”.

Related topics

• Assign Constructions
• Boundary Conditions
• Calculation Model: Constructions