javatom

This is one of the most cumbersome things to do with chief.  There can be many ways to do this.  As Eric said, you have to insert a floor.  I have also done this by creating a new plan with the required number of floors and using a cut/paste to place the floors on the new levels you want them on.  It is a pretty fast way to rearrange things.  This also works if floors need to reverse which level they are on.  One hint on any of this - Objects should be set to have the elevation above finished floor instead of absolute.  That way they will move up and down with the floor it is associated with.

The view you are sending may have an object in it that is really for from the structure.  Before you send it, hit F6 and see if the view widens to encompass some extraneous object.

You will be back to the forum before long with a list of things not working right.  Stay with what works.  The analogy might be a mechanic that has customized some part of the engine to his car.  Most people just want to drive the car with the least amount of headaches.

Some objects have really high face counts and should be avoided.  You can also purge unused materials from the plan materials list.  Imported pictures, especially pdf files will also bog down a system.  Another issue can be live updated views in a layout.  It may be a combination of a lot of things.  Other culprits include, too many lights, too many interior design items, too many cad blocked items.

I did not look at your plan but I wanted to comment on something you said.  You should figure out ALL floor plan issues including the stair before you do the roof.  If the the floor plan changes, the work on the roof becomes a waste of time.

I place them all on the same level (highest level with living space.  The con docs can then have a layer set that displays the roof planes over the walls that are supporting them.  I make the roof framing a separate layer set.

I think the IRC book says 150.

Eric answered it in post #2.

You can make it look right in 3d by telling the slab to be as thick as the depth you want the footings.  A lot of builders would only do a point load pad where the columns are located and make the porch an elevated slab.  In this instance, the software is doing it right.  You would have to manually place a pad for the columns on the foundation layer.

Use a pony wall.  Open the dbx for the wall in question and click on pony wall and pick your two wall types.

I have not done your particular thing so this is a bit of a guess.  I think you will have to import your info into chief as a DWG file.  You may need to fine tune the line weights and color.  I have only done this with engineer info like surveys etc.

Listen to Lew.  It's the best way to operate.  Cloud is for back up, not day to day storage of operating program or even main storage of your files.  Others may disagree.

Larry,  I may be way off on this but are you using a plan that has been used many times or had excessive re-designs.  Chief has an annoying habit of remembering room definitions and settings even if you remove the walls that created them.

I agree that this is not good part of CA.  In fact, it may be the worst.  I think your default stem wall is set under defaults - foundation - Then it is the combination of Minimum height and basement ceiling height.  To the right of that area is a button called "edit default foundation wall".  As far as I can tell, that only concerns the footing size and ironically has nothing to do with the height.  I have no help for you about "minimum garage height"  I'm not sure I have ever even changed it.

Nice job Dave.  Teaching takes patience and abilities.  You have both.

I only have time for a quick response with a down and dirty example.  Create a straight stair with winder box checked.  Grab the upper end of the stair and hold down the ALT key.  Drag it to the desired arc.  It will give you what you want.  My version took about 2 minutes.  The time will be spent getting to be right for the walls you want.

It does not show this way on my system.  Try closing your program and opening it up again.

Store fronts are not shower walls.  The first time it leaks or there is a problem, the client will want to know who had the idea of doing this.

Use edit area (all floors).  Use a marqee box around the area you want to move and use the transform/repicate tool to move it in the direction you want.

I think they sell this at home depot. (just kidding)

I would agree with Joe about this.  I have all kinds of red flags flying about using a store front window as a shower wall.  At a minimum, I would get it in writing that this was someone elses bright idea.

You need 2 floors to do this.  Just make the upper floor room def. "open below".  That way you get another wall to work with.  I'm not sure but I think this may be what glenn is doing.

Don't use curved walls.  Use walls that are at the angle you want for the windows.  Since you are putting windows to effectively replace the wall (no wall, only windows), it doesn't make sense to use a curved wall at all.

Put a concrete stem wall under it.

I missed the meeting but I thought I would throw this out there.  I use two feed to the layout that are in exact alignments.  The front image is back clipped and the back image is not.  I can then control the ghosting effect of the distant outline of the other objects by changing the gray level.  It is fast and people seem to like the look.