Revit Tip: Revit Wall Location Lines for Accurate Model Coordination

Wall location lines are a small Revit setting with a major effect on accuracy. They determine which part of a wall is positioned on the line you sketch, pick, align, or dimension. Set them deliberately before placing walls to keep your model coordinated from the start.

In the Architecture > Wall tool, review the Location Line option in the Options Bar before drawing. For an existing wall, select it and adjust Location Line in the Properties palette when needed. Revit offers several reference choices:

• Wall Centerline — Places the wall symmetrically around the drawn line. This is useful for simple, uniform walls but can be unreliable when wall types have unequal finish layers.
• Core Centerline — Centers the structural core on the layout line. This is often a strong choice for coordination with structural grids and framing.
• Finish Face: Exterior — Holds the exterior finished face to the line. Use it when the building envelope, exterior setback, or facade alignment must remain fixed.
• Finish Face: Interior — Holds the interior finished face to the line. This is valuable when maintaining room dimensions or aligning interior finishes.
• Core Face: Exterior and Core Face: Interior — Positions the relevant edge of the wall core on the line. These options are especially useful for structural coordination and walls with thick or variable finish assemblies.

A reliable workflow is to choose the reference that represents the design intent rather than simply using Revit’s last-used setting. For example, exterior walls commonly need to respect a fixed facade plane, while partition walls are often laid out from a core centerline or an interior finish face. The correct choice depends on what the dimensions in your drawings are actually measuring.

Use these practical habits to avoid wall layout problems:

• Set the location line before sketching. Changing it afterward can shift the visible faces of a wall, potentially affecting adjacent elements, dimensions, and room layouts.
• Check wall orientation. “Exterior” and “Interior” are based on the wall’s orientation. Use the flip controls to confirm that exterior finish layers face the correct direction.
• Coordinate with compound structure. Open the wall type’s Structure settings and identify the core boundary. Core-based location lines only make sense when the wall assembly has been correctly defined.
• Dimension to the intended reference. A dimension to a finish face may be appropriate for clear room size; a dimension to the core may be preferable for structural layout. Be consistent across the project.
• Use temporary dimensions as a quick check. When placing a wall, Revit’s temporary dimensions can reveal whether the selected location line is producing the intended offset from nearby grids, walls, or reference planes.
• Verify joins after changes. If wall geometry moves because its location line changes, inspect corners, inserts, hosted elements, and wall joins before continuing.

Location lines become particularly important with multi-layer exterior walls. A 12-inch wall with insulation, air space, cladding, and interior gypsum board can look correctly placed while its structural core is offset from the grid—or while its exterior facade exceeds the property or envelope line. Choosing Core Face: Exterior or Finish Face: Exterior intentionally prevents that ambiguity.

For teams, include wall location-line standards in the project template and document which reference is used for exterior walls, rated partitions, shaft walls, and interior partitions. Consistency reduces corrective work, supports cleaner dimensions, and makes linked-model coordination more dependable.

Explore professional Revit tools, training resources, and software options through NOVEDGE’s Autodesk Revit collection. A few seconds spent selecting the correct wall location line can prevent hours of downstream coordination adjustments.

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