CJSpud

For the outside 3-pc stairs, you have two doorways side x side on the upper stairs section on the left as you look at the stairs and building. I think you just need to delete the one to the right of the stairs connection to the balcony.

For you interior 3-pc stairs, connect your lower stairs section to your landing and things will start looking better. Actually, move the edge of your landing over to match up with the upper edge of the lower stairs section.

Johnny: Several months back (or more), Joe Carrick posted his ideas on curtain walls (I think) that might be helpful to you.

Mick: Here's one with the casing displayed that I got to butt up to the wall break. Again, just jiggled it in using the Ctrl key. I suppressed the casing in my other attempt because Johnny's image showed the casing removed/suppressed.

Johnny: Using the siding6 and brick6 wall types and a window with casing suppressed, I actually got this one to butt up to the wall types break without using the setting in my 1st post .... just used the control key and jiggled it over and it stuck.

Johnny: I just tested it myself and it took a little patience and holding the Ctrl key down by I finally got it to stick. Try zooming in and hopefully it will work for you.

Robert L. posted this solution to a thread awhile back that turned out to work real nice when an open doorway needed to butt up against a perpendicular wall. I am not sure if it will work for what you're doing but you might give it a try.

Is it true that if you throw a stone straight up in the air, and there's no prevailing wind, that the stone will come down and smack you?

Joe: I think all you've said is correct. But once a person has set up his anno sets with an appropriate layer set for each anno set, why would you want to change the layer set for any particular anno set?

Mick: I don't believe that the stone finish he's looking at requires an air gap like you see typically used with brick veneer. Terry: Not sure what to say about editing your corners ... I was talking about the Edit Wall Layer Intersections tool, not the Connect Walls tool. These are not the same tools. As Mick (and I) have suggested, once you make your wall type definitions match the way the "walls will actually be built", I think you will have much better luck with your walls. I think you just need more time practicing with the tools and studying how the program works. Good luck.

Alan: Could you explode your dormers and put individual items (walls, roof planes, windows, etc.) on custom layers you could turn on/off?

I have run into problems by working in plan and not using my anno sets to switch back and forth between views that I will be sending or have sent to LO. I think it works best if you send views to LO and then dbl click the layout box (in LO) to work on any particular anno set. If for whatever reason you haven't sent views to LO, then to keep your layers (dimensions, etc.) working properly, you have to switch back and forth with whatever anno set you want to work on.

To add the molding cap, select the "outside room" and then click on the Make Room Moulding Polyline tool in the edit tool bar. You can set the height of the molding above the floor ... in your case set it to 48", you can specify the molding shape, you can specify the molding to extrude on the inside or outside (use outside), and you can specify the molding material to use (as well as it's dimensions). Depending on which of those two pages of Home Depot products you want to use, you may want to create a custom molding profile that mimics whatever sort of cap that is sold for your specific product. You can learn about all this stuff by doing searches in Help and by watching Chief's tutorial videos or reading their database articles on the website. Edit: I forgot to mention that for the exterior room moulding polyline, there's a checkbox you can use to deselect the molding from certain wall segments (i.e., those where you won't have the stone. The alternative to using the exterior moulding PL is to just draw a line for the wall segments where the stone will be and convert it to a moulding PL ... but there are some downsides to going this route which I believe you can read about in the manual.

I would recommend you use one of Chief's existing wall types, make a copy and rename it as desired and then change the exterior material to your stone material. If it is a manufactured stone product, go to the manufacturer's website and find what the thickness should be (I am guessing ±2"). Make sure your lower pony wall layers match exactly how the stone manufacturer specifies their stone to be used. You can fix that corner by using the Edit Wall Layer Intersection tool in the edit tool bar once you select your wall(s). To learn more about that tool, go to Help (F1) and see how it can be used.

Larry: It should work for you. Did you make a copy of the material (with new name) before you changed the size of the material? If not, try that and hopefully it will work for you. Make sure you OK it in the dbx rather than just closing the dbx when done.

I could be wrong but I think you "might" have to set that stuff up in your defaults for stairs. I don't think selecting it and then clicking on Save As Default (a white wrench with a red +) in the edit tool bar works for a stairs railing as opposed to a standard railing.

Yusuf: We've got two different users that have questions. Shane wants the porch roof framed with rafters. I would do it as you show under the assumption that porch roof portion can be built with the same trusses for the rest of the structure ... which I am sure it could. You're not missing nothing and your apples turned out perfect.

Mick: I sort of think you are right but look at the following image: To get that look (porch rafter over a truss), I first pulled the porch roof back toward the middle; then created a truss (I had to edit its length, then its shape as shown ... Used a CAD line on-plane with the roof to get the porch part of the truss looking as is); then put in a porch roof rafter by dragging from the railing in to the intersection point of the roof planes; then I made a copy of the rafter and did a Point to Point move to get it right over the truss. I also experimented with trying to place a sleeper on the 10:12 roof for the porch rafters to bear on but Chief will change the sleeper pitch once most of the sleeper in under the shallower pitch. I suppose that maybe a sleeper wouldn't be needed if the rafters are setting on the trusses??? I was expecting Chief to go into some sort of auto redo all that work mode but it didn't ... things stayed put as shown. So maybe you can get the framing to look sort of OK in 3D framing views. It might look better if a custom rafter was created from PL solids and shaped as it would be made in real and then copied across the roof area where needed. I got other things to do now so someone else can play with it.

To get the gable, I 1st drew a CAD line from the door center point out past the railing wall; then I selected and copied that line ±5' ea. way which gives me an exact location in which to place the wall breaks needed for the gable. Then just select that new railing wall segment; change the pitch to the lower value - put the check mark in for gable wall and should be good to go. Use whatever distances (gable width) you want. I think 4:12 pitch for the porch and gables would look better. 3:12 just looks too flat for my eye.

Mountaineer: Your 2nd floor wall is out of alignment with your 1st floor wall on the porch side ... that's why there's a chunk of stuff sticking above the roof. Also, some of your foundation walls are out of alignment with your 1st floor walls ... and you need to move the attic porch gable wall in to align with the end wall of the house as well. Haven't looked at much else. Fun looking project.

Mountaineer: If you want a gable on your 3:12 deck roof outlining your entry door you can do that auto build BUT, before you can get the roof to come out properly, you need to determine exactly where the 3:12 and 10:12 roof pitches intersect ... therefore you need to know the distance in from the baseline or the elevation of the intersection point. Without knowing that, this is what you will get: If you must try to do this roof in auto build mode, what I recommend you do is manually build a short 10:12 roof on the side of the house opposite the front deck; select it and copy/reflect around the center axis of your main house to paste it on the front deck side; change the roof pitch to 3:12 and build a short roof section over your deck wall; then select the up-pitch side of the 3:12 roof plane, hit #2 (connect roof planes), and select the lower edge of the adjacent 10:12 roof plane to join them. Where the 3:12 and 10:12 roof planes intersect is where you get the missing information. I would suggest just measuring from the outer edge of your deck railing wall to the roof planes intersection point (do this in plan view). Select and copy that horizontal measurement into the railing walls roof tab for upper roof pitch distance from baseline. Knowing that and having it put in the dialog should allow you to auto build the roof. But, why not just do it manually ... your done in a jiffy and probably takes much less time.

Swap your pitch settings ... your bass ackwards.

Shane: This is all auto build ... your plan: Porch roof plan 2.zip

I would just show the space where they will live. You could then create the profile for one and replicate it in a X Section at a decent scale to show what your intent is. Put your channel profile on its own layer if needed so you can turn it on and off. Or just do a CAD detail showing the channel. I would only want to show a typical install and not have to put channels inplace wherever they are called for.

There's been some good threads on this subject not too long ago. Do a search. Glenn W. and Yosuf did some videos that may be helpful to you.