Doug_N

If the design allows it you could also stretch to roof plane to cover the offending wall.

Here it is When you do that, the foundation and footings have to be stepped to show the symbol just as Eric said.

After changing all to flat ceiling over room I still have the notches. Aaarrrgggg!!

What is going on with this? The little downward part in the circle is how the whole rafter should look. Why the notches out of the rafter above and below the circled part? Alternate Three - Column.plan

That isn't his little one, that is him. He just looks younger than he is. Getting into a bar would be a great u tube video.

I would like to use this area for OBC questions. Like for example, how come there is no LVL table in part 9 of the code? How come there are no tables for beams on exterior walls except for lintels?

I am a BCIN small buildings designer in Whitby. I have clients throughout the GTA, Mississauga, Brampton and the Durham Region. Count me in.

Thanks Eric.

Scott, thanks for the reply, but the problem was not fixed. Raising the roof partly covered the second story window, which is why the roof was at the elevation that I had in my posted file. in this image see the void at the corner of the building? This is caused by the porch. If the porch is deleted then the problem at the corner of the building goes away. Very strange.

I have a strange situation with a porch that I am adding to the front of a house. The walls go completely wonky. If you delete the porch the walls heal themselves. Another thing, ceilings won't generate, although that is not related to the porch. Somewhere I have messed this up. Strange. Porch Test.plan

Yup, good point Eric.

I know this is going to sound stupid to you guys, but, how do I just get area labels to round to something useful, like 2 decimal places?

Hi Perry, Yeah I get that concept, and it works too for some clients. The ones that I do the full on truss simulation is to show just how hard it is to get into the attic space once the roof is installed. Some of them imagine a place where they can store furniture and lots of memorabilia like in nostalgic movies. When they see the reality, I get to design storage space somewhere else, like in the garage, or in the basement.

No permit drawings are part of the design process where you are explaining design features to your client. In the submittal set pf drawings, the trusses are deleted and the truss drawings from the truss manufacturer are included. Getting the designs past the client, now that is indeed an elusive animal that can haunt all designer's dreams.

Don't forget to report this, with info about your setup etc. to nvidia so they can fix their driver.

Anyhow the problem was that the stairs have to be in a closed room. All walls have to intersect.

No, damn, i was trying to edit it and goofed up.

For some reason the stairs won't tuck into the corner where the walls intersect. Strangely the winder option => works at other locations in the building. I suspect that there is something wrong with the intersection of the two walls, or there is something wrong with the room.

So here I am trying to make some winder stairs. I create the stairs, move them into a corner, turn off the railings and click on the stairs to open them, then click on the winder check mark. Nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? Renovation Plan Original House.plan

David, Far be it for me to blame the tools. This reminds me of a story about an apprentice carpenter who was complaining about the quality of his saw. He said that he had cut a board 3 times and it was still too short. If only he had a better saw. I realize my shortcomings with CA because I have been using it now for just short of a year. Every time I use it new methods are discovered that make me think, I wish I had known this on the last project. But I disagree that CA is just a tool. It is an intelligent tool. It completes a great number of tasks in the background as you go about the work of defining space to live or work in. Overall on a scale of one to ten, I would rate this program as an 8. It does nearly everything that most jobs required. That being said, there are also some things that CA are really quite poor at. When you need to do something that doesn't fit the "rules" that make it smart, it is hard to turn them off. It is hard to do railings for example, and I have run into that problem on nearly every project that I have worked on so far. Chief Architects creates roof details amazingly well and like magic, can join them together, making ridges and fascia details pop up like nobody's business. Roof and wall intersections. Not so much. Most can be fixed with a few tweaks of the surface material planes with the editing tools. But sometimes the planes decide to fly, and off they go and you end up with a punk rock version of the building with really bad spiky hair. Do I plan to go to some other software? Not a chance. I LOVE this application. For any of the frustration, it makes my job a complete joy. I can hardly wait to start the next project! And the next, and the next. One other small wish, and this is for the support people. Autodesk will try and walk you though something. If they can't they do a remote session on your computer to see first hand what is going on. That is amazing support, and often with amazing results. Just saying. Well enough for now. I am so happy to be a user, and really happy with the group of users who are so willing to support one another. One other small point. I am really really happy that most of my competition are not using this software. (I hope the Chief Architect guys are not listening to this last one.) Regards from the not so frozen north. Hotter than Miami today. Doug.

The big problem is with as built drawings. Sometimes the original building is a bit chaotic. Non standard methods create awful details that need to be captured attach the addition to. That is the case with the attached file. Drove me nuts, and I am still not done. This is a draft. Just uploaded it as an example. The builder had gone ahead without a permit, and now I have the problem of making this mess compliant with code. The owner is asking me to work around what is already done and to change only what must be redone to meet code. For example on the wall above the stubby roof in the picture was built on top of the roof, even thought the roof inside the wall was demo'd. Arrrrggggg. Renovation Plan MODE.plan

It might be just me, but I have noticed that as I work on a building and things become complicated, with CA sometimes it is just easier to start over. With the things that I have learned from the mistakes that I made doing the design, the second time goes much quicker, and with a much cleaner build. Also I wanted to comment on the great help I have had here in this forum. You guys (and ladies) are great. Thank you so much. Doug Doug Norton Whitby Ontario Canada

Ok thanks Eric.

Hey Eric, Thanks for that. I appreciate the feedback and help. I noticed the stubby roof was moved away from the building, did you need to do that to place the attic wall? Doug