LevisL

This is not the original thread, but @robdyck did mention how he does it in this one:

I use a detail similar to Tom. Our code up here in Canada specifies the same minimum 1" space between the roof sheathing and the baffle. The baffle also needs to extend a min. 2" vertically above the insulation.

A couple options that don't involve cad lines or points...

11 hours ago, Luciano said:

Thank you DavidJPotter for your answer/solution. I have started to copy all the Manufacturer folders into my User Folder/Manu. Then I will regroupe all the products together by type.

 

Thank you also to Kbird1 for the information, it does make sense.

 

Thank you robdyck, I was thinking exactly that, it would be great to be able to do that while still being able to do updates when needed.

To add to David's answer, instead of just copying and pasting manufacturer folders to your user library, you can paste shortcuts, which will keep the links to the manufacturer folders so you can keep them up to date.

I've done that with a few cabinet manufacturers. The icon beside the library item has an arrow in it when it's a shortcut.

1 minute ago, robdyck said:

 

@LevisLHonestly, why do you even bother??

. All good! I knew why it wasn't working for you, but couldn't figure out how to get it to work either! Nothing like a good half-a** solution! Bill is in the mail with a 50% discount...

Just now, solver said:

%width+2.in%

Aha. I was missing the dot to make it work in my test!

One of the macro gurus can chime in here on how to do it, but the problem is you're trying to add 2 of what? inches? feet? mm? I know you said inches, but Chief doesn't know! Multiplying or dividing doesn't need units.

1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

 

@robdyck

@SH_Canada

@LevisL

 

Are in Alberta I believe , not sure where though.

 

M.

Thanks for the mention Mick. I'm up in the Peace River area, not really close to Leduc. I've also got my hands full with projects here locally right now. I do have experience with full ICF builds, but I wouldn't be able to start on it for almost a month though.

Rob (@robdyck) is down southeast corner of the province in the Medicine Hat area, while Jason (@SH_Canada) is in Calgary.

12 hours ago, Electromen said:

This won't help with the lost files, but will prevent it in the future.

Buy an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). A UPS is a 120 volt battery backup. 

I like APC

This one, APC Back UPS 1500, Compact Tower, 1500VA, 120V, AVR, LCD, 10 NEMA outlets (5 surge)

will do everything you need to continue printing, save and safely shut down the computer until the power comes back on.

Depending on the load such as computers, printers, monitors, etc., you should be able to continue working for 30 minutes or more, maybe an hour.

It's also an excellent surge arrestor.

I have one on my office computer, one on the home computer and a small run for internet and network.

After a few years, the battery will need replaced like any battery, but it's easy to do.

I ordered this one from Amazon yesterday:

https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/ups/intelligent-lcd/cp1000avrlcd/

Seems to have just as good reviews and it was just a bit better priced than a similar APC unit. Hopefully it works well!

I'll have my iMac, plotter and small printer hooked up to it, so I should get close to 10 minutes of runtime if the power goes out when I'm using one of the printers and the CPU is running at its max, and 25 minutes or longer if I'm not printing and CPU usage is at 50% or less . Realistically though, in most cases, I just need enough time to save and shut down if the power goes out! 

I also turned on Dropbox Backup to backup my desktop and documents folders to Dropbox, so hopefully by doing both of these, I won't have another incident like this!

2 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

Meant to be a helpful response.
The door schedule you could setup quite easily by creating style pallets that carry Macros in OIP/Custom Fields with them, then it would just be point and click on your doors.
The room schedule could be automated but would be limited in terms of graphics. as they pertain to column/row padding, but the time saving would make that pretty desirable to me. How are you producing that schedule?
 

Good idea about the style palettes. I'll definitely give that more thought.

For the room finish schedule, it's basically just lines, text boxes and filled CAD circles for the dots. All manual. I had one from a previous project, though much smaller, saved in my library, so it was just a matter of changing room names, adding extra rows and copying/pasting the dots as needed. I made it as fast as I could by using transform/replicate and multiple copy wherever I was able to. Each square is 12"x12" in plan, so it made it easier that way.

2 hours ago, rgardner said:

BTW a good UPS for a desktop computer is pretty essential as it also protects against voltage spikes and brownouts as well as the occasional power outage that was not expected.

Very true. I’ll look into getting one of those as well.

21 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

Question from me is, what’s difficult about making a schedule? Usually a few minutes time. Any reason not to redo it?

Here’s why! The room finish schedule is not the type Chief does automatically. And there was a ton of customization in the door schedules using the door OIP’s and custom fields. The only one that was quick was the window schedule!

39 minutes ago, rgardner said:

If you are on a mac by chance do you have time machine setup?  go back to before the power outage and grab one of the autobackups and copy the detail over???

Unfortunately, I don’t have it set up, nor do my I have iCloud backups set up to backup my documents folder. I used to have Time Machine set up, but my backup drive failed a while back and I never replaced it. With all my drawings usually saved to Dropbox, other than autosaves, it wasn’t urgent. 

Anyway, I managed to recover at least the pdf version of the schedules with Dropbox version history, so barring any changes, I can at least just re-import them back into my plan or layout file, just not editable. I’m close to the end of this project, so fingers crossed! 

I guess the lesson here is that I need to backup the backups! I’ll look into into replacing that external drive or backing up the autosaves to either Dropbox or iCloud.

Nope. My manual saves are saved in Dropbox, but autosaves are just in my documents on my mac. I looked in Dropbox for the version history, but no luck. 

So I got hit by an unexpected power failure late this afternoon, just as I was finishing up a set of con docs... right in the middle of printing them. Once the power came back on, I turned my computer on and re-opened the file. At first glance, everything looked okay, minus a couple changes I had made right before the power went out. About 10-15 minutes into it, I realized a couple cad details are missing, including one with all the schedules I had worked on today, some of which were quite long and detailed since it's a commercial building. By that time, autosave had already written over the last autosave from before the outage a couple times (mine are set to 5 minutes). I usually do manual saves often-ish, but with the deadline I had today, I guess I didn't save the plan file all afternoon, just the layout file... is there any other autosaves or backups in a system folder somewhere that I could look for, other than in my Chief Data folder? Or am I SOL and better just fix myself a stiff drink and get back to re-drawing everything I lost?!     

20 hours ago, robdyck said:

Generally, I'd move that major roof plan back at least 2'-0" (but only if it would work out with the rest of the house, ie the part we can't see to the left of your image)

Another option to achieve a similar result would be to bump that right gable 2'-0" further out towards the front instead. 

9 hours ago, ACAaron said:

I'm looking for an easier method to label my electrical circuits.  I currently, I insert all my receps, switches, lights, etc. run all my calcs that create my panel.  To label the circuits, I then copy and paste the number to each recep, switch and fixtures.  See the attached screen shot for what end goal is.  The issues I'm having are:

• It's time consuming to copy/paste each label, then go back and change an entire room to the same number, etc. etc. etc.
• If have to change a circuit later, changing all the labels is cumbersome
• And most importantly, I'm somewhat of a perfectionist and getting all the labels to set in the exact same place in relation to the fixture is an issue (The screen shot attached drives me nuts due lack of symmetry)

 

Does anybody have a better solution that they wouldn't mind sharing?

 

29 minutes ago, Dermot said:

Maybe use an electrical schedule?

Another option that might work well for you is a note schedule. You'd still have to copy/paste each note, but it would make quick work of re-numbering if you need to. Copying and pasting can be pretty quick if you use the sticky mode though.

In the screenshots below, you'll notice I left the default 'text above line' label as the %simple_schedule_number% macro. This way, if you re-organize the rows in the schedule, the numbering will automatically change on all the keynotes.

You could make the schedule text (top text box in the dbx) whatever you want and not necessarily the circuit number. I just set this up quickly. You just need to make it something that will differentiate the #1 notes from the #2 notes, etc. 

This method still won't help your OCD with the label placement relative to the fixture though! 

On 10/19/2021 at 5:39 AM, PMMully said:

I will likely have to make my own exit sign symbol as well. 

Why? There are some in the core library. Search for "exit"

If you don't want a small flat area like in David's example, just do either the left or the right, but not both.

Or you can use a Tudor Arch with a radius of 0".

Write a couple macros, and put them in your label. Not at the computer to try right now, but something along the lines of:

%leftcomponentsize%/%rightcomponentsize%x%height%, where you’ll define right component size to be total width, less left component. 
 

If you want the label to only report the size like that when the left and right side aren’t even, you’ll need an if,elsif statement in your label macro.

9 hours ago, lbuttery said:

GPS data from sats used to be 3 meters off or was it 3' (1 meter) ?

 

this was a requirement by the military

 

not sure if this has changed

 

Lew

 

it depends on the equipment and the signal strength. I farm as well and I know the GPS receivers on our machines are capable of precision up to 3”. If we upgraded to RTK receivers, we could increase the precision to under 1”, but the price increase is steep! I imagine higher end surveying equipment uses similar technology. Consumer grade iPhones… not so much! 
 

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/

Whenever I can't get data from a surveyor, I go out to the site with my laser level and shoot elevations myself. I have a Trimble Spectra Precision LL100. It's self-levelling, so it's really easy to set up and start measuring. And with the receiver for the rod, it's a one person job. As @BuildingDesignNZ mentioned, the key is to set a datum point to reference off of. On steep lots or where you have existing structures in the way, you might have to move the laser around a few times, but it's not too bad once you get the hang of it.

Here's an existing small commercial building I shot around a couple months ago. Took about an hour to get all these elevations. Each time I moved the laser, I changed the pen colour on my iPad.

One thing you could maybe use your Apple Watch for, if it's capable of doing so, is record your position (lat & long) for mapping elevations on larger properties as you shoot them with the laser. I know I used my iPhone for that a few years ago and it worked okay. The key is to use a good mapping app. I remember trying a few before I found one that worked well and didn't cost a pile of money, but I don't remember which I settled on (I deleted a bunch of apps off my phone since then)! If I remember correctly, I actually used a hiking app that records your trail as you go and I dropped pins/flags wherever I shot an elevation.  As @dshall said, some of these apps will also record elevation, but the accuracy is nowhere close enough to what I'd consider reliable to build from!

3 hours ago, para-CAD said:

Everywhere I used to frame (except for Western Canada) was this:

 

Pre-cut Studs

 

92 5/8

 

104 5/8

 

116 5/8

 

- Add (3) plates (2 top and 1 bottom, you get:

 

8’-1 1/8”

 

9’-1 1/8”

 

10’-1 1/8”

 

That covers your standard wall heights.

 

 

 

The majority of Joists can be lumber, I-joist or trusses:

 

Lumber: (PT is usually a bit thicker)

 

2x10 = 9.25”

 

2x12 = 11.25”

 

 

I-Joist

 

9.5”

 

11.875”

 

14”

 

16”

 

 

Floor trusses

 

Anything over 18” mostly (24”)

How long ago did you frame up here in Western Canada?! Reason I ask is I've been drafting for about 20 years and what you just listed has been more or less standard as far as I can remember! I've worked in Edmonton, Lethbridge, and I've been in the Peace Country for the last 10 years. All the same. The ladder system at the top of foundation walls apparently is a Western Canada thing though, though even that is more popular in certain cities than others! And very few stick framed roofs. Most of the roofs use energy heel trusses up here.

On 9/5/2021 at 8:19 PM, jasonN said:

Thanks @LevisL for this tidbit:

OPEN LINE DBX AND LOOK AT Y POSITION FOR RIDGE HEIGHT

I can then get the lower point of the hip roof. But I'm not sure I understand the need to get the ridge height this way, as the Edit->preference-Architectural->Roofs->automatically place roof intersection points will place an x there for me. Or is this just another way to do it? Is there an advantage of this way or is it a preference?

More than one way to skin a cat! Lol. I don't have those roof intersection points turned on. I find them misleading. Sure they'll tell you where two roof planes will intersect, but what if your heights on one plane aren't correct? Anyway, that's my personal opinion! 

In most cases when figuring out complex roofs, I usually start with the baseline and calculate the correct elevations from there up, but in certain cases, like your 3:12 overframe, it's just as easy to figure out where the ridge is supposed to be, and work down from that. That's the beauty of the radio buttons we have in the roof plane dbx for height/pitch. As long as you know one of the variables, you can lock it and have Chief figure out the other ones.

On 9/5/2021 at 8:19 PM, jasonN said:

Not sure how that tail got there ont he siding but it might have something to do with the framing as the tuss dbx shows some bizarre looking truss although the framing overview does not. nor does the truss detail

 

 

In cases like this where a particular area generates an odd truss, sometimes it's easier to draw the truss in an area where it'll generate properly, then open the truss dbx and check 'Lock Truss Envelope and Webbing', then move/copy that truss to where you want it. Or manually adjust the truss envelope in a section view. I'll usually try to figure out why the truss isn't generating properly for a few minutes, but if I can't figure it out, I don't keep fighting it! Copy from another location or edit envelope and move on!

@jasonN I sorta found a solution for the wall corner that had extra lines on the elevation view. For some reason, the attic wall on the gable has a "tail" that comes down on that corner. I simply selected that tail and dragged it back up flush with the bottom of the rest of the attic wall.

Also, I cleaned up the roof lines and upper roof trusses if you want to check out how I did it .

brIan wong addtion3 SIMPLE ROOFS - Fixed.plan.zip

If you look at elevation 5 that I added and saved, you'll see how I figured out the correct ridge height for that 3:12 section of roof. 

I wasn't able to get rid of a few gaps in the siding on the left side of the upper floor, but those won't be visible in your elevation views, so I left them. If you're sending 3D views to your client and they bother you, you could always cover them up with a polyline solid. The one on the corner is almost completely hidden if you add a corner trim to the siding, which I did.

P.S.: You'll need to have a short 2x6 pony wall above the existing 2x4 wall on the left side, otherwise you'll have a 2" offset in the siding above the existing roof. I guess you could do 2x4 + 2" rigid foam as well.