CJSpud

Larry: I see Ben got to you first. I tried a quicky with a couple of different wall types before my first post to see if we could put a break in the top of a wall and then select one of the segments and curve the top per Ben's suggestion. I would think that just about all Chief users would like to have this capability. If we could do that with a railing wall (half wall), then it would be easy and quick to do your curved top wall. Using roof planes was a clever idea .... as well as the multiple breaks in the wall top ... and got the green arrow from me.

I think Ben's idea would be the way to go.

No data in plan .... close the plan 1st then post.

Ditto .... Tim could figure anything out. Hope he's doing well.

From David at Chief Tutor: http://www.chieftutor.com/molding/column.html

Here's a video on some ways to do columns: http://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=column I thought there might be other videos and/or articles on creating Craftsman type columns but couldn't find anything else. You might check Dan Baumann's Chief Experts website ... he might have something posted there that you can view without joining. I think I remember Dan doing this with custom molding shapes (stacked) ... similar to what is near the end of the video.

There are some columns in the library with stone on the bottoms ... Craftsman style. You could also just change the column size to bigger (square columns) and then change the material to stone. Many other options to use beyond this.

If you see a user posting here with a website, once in awhile you'll find someone who posts one or more of their sample plans on their websites. One of the better sample plans by a CA user you may find is posted on the CA website here: http://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/plan-sets/aibd-working-drawing-joey-martin.pdf

If the floor your working from is Floor 1, just create your basement by building the foundation level, setting your floor structure, ceiling height and stem wall heights as needed. Then you could build your stairs from either level as discussed. If you get your basement built OK, and you're building the stairs from Floor 0, turn on your Reference Floor Display and you should be able to place your stairs pretty close to where you need it located. All this stuff can be researched in the manual (F1).

Yes ... you need a floor below to get your stairs down if you are doing any 3D camera work to go with your design. If only working in 2D plan views, you could "fake it" with CAD lines etc. Chief likes to for us to draw stairs from the current level to the level above. Chief has an "auto stairwell" tool that creates your opening through the floor nicely "IF" you have the floor above already built .... otherwise it will tell you it can't find it. Chief does allow us to draw stairs going down to the next level as noted in the manual (F1 - Help): To draw stairs going downward 1. Select Build> Stairs> Straight Stairs . 2. Hold down the Alt key or the right mouse button. 3. Click and drag to create straight stairs. When drawing stairs or ramps from a floor platform to the terrain, or vice versa, they will locate the height of the terrain as long as it is lower than the floor height. You can also create a landing or “room” outside the structure and use it to establish the bottom height of the stairs or ramp. Then, draw in an upward direction from the lower platform to the upper platform.

Here's a list of videos from CA that might be useful: http://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=moldings

I was thinking about dropping the roof of my current project an inch or two so I could get those vertical members over my exterior walls but decided it might be easier to just change the top chord depth of the trusses from 2x4 to 2x6, which would put the bottoms of the top and bottom chords very close to each other at the fascia [bill's idea] . The project is in an 80 lb. snow load area so the truss manufacturer may design the trusses with a deeper top chord anyway. I selected one of the trusses in a 3D framing overview, opened the truss dialog and changed the top chord depth to 5-1/2" > OK and BINGO, the truss rebuilt with a vertical member over the walls as desired and per Bill's advice. This works as long as the trusses aren't intersecting a truss base for a perpendicular intersecting roof (such as a garage or carport roof in an 'L' configuration]. All of the trusses that tied in with the truss base for the carport roof of my project WOULD NOT build a vertical member over the exterior bearing walls [side of trusses opposite the truss base]. That is a little hiccup that I would like to see fixed in a future update or version. Even though Chief's trusses are VISUAL ONLY (not structural), I think the roof trusses would be a lot more professional looking if they resembled the real thing. Maybe we need a "insert member" tool for our trusses?!?

Alan: I don't think so. Chief likes to place blocking in the space between the rafters ... as I am sure you have already determined. I thought using a wall material region might be helpful but it won't extend up into the rafters when I try it. Using a PL solid will if you want to use that as your exterior finish. There might be some other way to trick it to work ... I will have to scratch my head a little harder to come up with other options. Have you tried lowering the roof after its built? That doesn't sound like a good option to me. How about 2 floors and then lower the roof to match the first floor plate heights?

Nope.

Bill: Did we say the same thing?

Mick: My BAD ... I actually had my default ICF walls in my model when I first started working on the roof. I "manually" changed all the ICF walls to siding 6 walls, including the attic gable walls after the walls were built. So, I went back and redid the test and I think I found out why you are getting wall framing for your gable attic walls. My bet is that you built the wall framing "before" you built (created) your truss(es). If you build the wall framing before your gable trusses (or maybe any trusses ...??? didn't check that) are in place, then the gable walls will get their stud framing built just like you would do for a manually framed gable wall. However, if you create your roof trusses right after you build the roof, but before you build the wall framing, then you shouldn't get any wall framing showing up for your attic gable walls. Hope that helps.

Mick: That's weird ... mine was a simple test plan ... trusses designated ....didn't do anything cute with energy heels or canted trusses .... siding 6 wall type ... Chief built the attic gable walls as siding 6 the same as the main level. When I built the wall framing (I was on Floor 1), I immediately checked my 3D framing overview to see if any attic gable wall framing was clashing with the gable trusses .... nothing. Next, I went up to the attic level and then opened the framing dbx and clicked to build wall framing ... again, no framing was built. Based up my results, I conclude that when you put a check mark in for roof trusses, that Chief will not frame the attic level gable walls, which makes since to me. If it would have, I would call that a bug. Not sure what to say about the results you are seeing. We obviously must be doing two different things since our results are different. Here's some images of my results: Here's the plan if you want to see the results I got: GableWallFraming-TrussedRoofTest.zip I did a bit of editing of the lookouts and the dropped gable truss on one end of the model. The views for the images are saved in the project browser. By the way, I do something very similar to what Bill does for attic gable walls. I make a "skinny" wall type that might be something like this for layers (from outside to inside): 5/8" siding; house wrap/weather barrier; 7/16" OSB sheathing; 1-1/2" fir framing [to represent an actual gable truss with finishes complete]. If there's a framed wall below, then I align the outside of the fir framing layer with the same layer on the level below. Since I do lots of ICF plans, the outside of the OSB gable wall sheathing will align with the outer foam layer of the ICF wall on the level below. For aligning/placement of attic gable wall trusses, I pretty much do the same thing ... outside of framing to outside of framing [framed walls level below attic] or I set the gable trusses back 7/16" if there are ICF walls below.

Mick: If you've checked for your roof to have trusses, I don't believe your gable walls will actually have wall framing built with the rest of your framed walls. Did you check for trusses in the build roof dbx? Maybe I am missing something.

I guess I should try and drop the roof a couple of inches and see what happens at the walls. Thanks.

Bill: I actually had not "discovered" the relationship of the bottoms of the top and bottom chords and whether or not a canted truss with a vertical member over the wall would be generated. In my example, it luckily worked out that the trusses built that way when I moved them up (so the bottom chord would cant). A project I am currently working on, for whatever reason gives me mixed results. The carport area is 30' wide; 6:12 roof pitch and 2' overhangs and the trusses have the canted bottom chords and the vertical member at the wall (see below): The house area is 40' wide with the roof pitch and overhangs the same as the carport, yet Chief will not put the vertical member over the wall as shown below: It doesn't look anywhere close to being what you'd expect a truss to look like without that vertical member at the walls, BUT, as has been stated by Chief, the trusses it generates are not structural ... just a representation that the roof is supported by trusses. By the way, neither the 30' trusses nor the 40' trusses were designated as being energy heel trusses. That just comes with the turf when canted trusses with enough overhang are used ... you'll get some sort of energy heel out of the deal. If I designate the 40' trusses as having an energy heel and force the trusses to rebuild, then Chief will give me a vertical member at the wall, BUT, Chief takes away the canted bottom chord in the process (see next image): If I select the truss and edit its shape at the overhang, it reverts back to a canted truss with no vertical member at the wall. Like I said in my 1st post, it would be nice to have a bit more control for canted trusses ... a check box we can put the check in to get the bottom chord to extend out to the subfascia would work for me. They (the CA dudes) could leave the rest like it is, if checking for an energy heel would give us the vertical member at the wall without messing anything else up. My 2 cents worth at this moment. Maybe there's a way to use some trickery to get it to work right .... if so, I haven't discovered it yet. I don't have a clue why my 40' truss built differently than the 30' truss ... I am assuming it has something to do with the truss width and the way the code is written to insert the angled truss members at a certain spacing.

No auto trusses. I just pulled a dimension or two in elevation view after I built the roof to find out how much I needed to raise the roof to get a 14" heel. If Chief allowed us to put a check mark in a box specifying canted trusses and also plugging in a heel height, it would really be easy, but the dialogs aren't set up that way.

Hi: The attached plan has a roof that should more or less meet your spec's as you noted in your first post. Note that there are 3 different roof overhangs: 18" CA default for the gables, 2' for the 6:12 eaves and 14-3/8" for the 10:12 eaves. All the heel heights are set at 14". The transform replicate tool was used to fine tune the heel heights to 14" once I built the roof. There is a truss built for each section of the house for you to look at. If you want identical roof overhangs all around the house, then you'll need to change heel heights somewhere or make all the roof pitches the same value. RoofTrusses&14inHeel.zip

Myrt.... Are all the fascia heights for all roofs suppose to be at the same elevation? What are your eave and gable overhang dimensions? When you have trusses that have the bottom chord extending out to create the framing for your eave soffits, that type of truss is called a "canted" or "cantilever" truss.

I LIKE mine!!

Jon: Very nice!!