Richard_Morrison

Just use a 2D hatch and be done with it. It still would be helpful for the future if you would add your version to your signature. You can do this in your account settings.

I might look for a way to avoid breaking the wall at the intersection. Otherwise, I think just 2D fills are the way to go.

Are you still on X8? (Please add your version to your signature.) If so, there is no fix. In X9, hatches at intersections were improved significantly. But, in any case, if it's just an intersection or two, I would just throw a small matching 2D rectangle with fill over that intersection.

I think it would be better to look at the rent-to-buy option of the full professional version of Chief, if lowering initial outlay is the main concern. $200/mo. She could learn the ropes on the free trial version and start renting when the first project comes in.

Thanks, Johnny! Good point about the engineering. It's always worth running some numbers to see if alternative structural systems might save money. If you can save, say, even $1500 in materials by investing $1000 in extra engineering, that's a pretty good ROI. In this particular design, I would love to see more attention paid to details like adding the corner boards that will be actually be there (I'm assuming that the T1-11 isn't going to be mitered, lol), attention to consistent window types, sizes, and head heights, and the proportionality of the second floor masses to the lower floor. (Also, I think the roofs are overly complicated for a "cabin.") What I often see is that people overlook simple ways to create more interesting volumes for the interior spaces by making an assumption that it's going to be "expensive" to vault a ceiling, etc. This reminds me of a cabin I designed a number of years ago where steeper roof slopes kept the outside less massive, but allowed for more interesting spaces inside. (Sorry for the photo quality. These are just snaps from the homeowner because the house was in North Carolina.)

I'm just going based on what the OP says they do, i.e. basic garden-variety zoning research. Maybe they do more, but I'm certainly not going to assume that.

Wow. I wouldn't have thought you could get an actual business out of this. I usually determine all of this information in about 15 minutes of online research - maybe with an additional phone call to the City - before moving on to the design. I don't think I could MAKE it take a whole hour, including a coffee break. But, who knows, maybe Austin has rules that are incredibly complex compared to here, with arcane rules that require in-person City visits.

Yes, you can import the DWG in Chief. But what is a "permit company"? I have never heard of this. (Permit expeditors, yes.)

Setting the lengths of walls this way through the DBX is seldom useful, to my mind. Much faster to get an approximate roughed out plan, do a Shift-A to dimension everything, using whichever reference points you want, and then adjust by using the displayed dimensions.

You don't say where you are from. Different jurisdictions have different levels of "finickyness." Around where I am, even on a flat site, spot elevations are required to determine site drainage patterns. Often they will require an outline of neighboring houses with ridge heights identified. Also, if you are in a FEMA flood zone, you may need to get an elevation certificate, and design with flood zone requirements in mind. You should be clear on what sort of boundary markers will be placed, and determine if you need anything placed near the construction area to determine compliance with setback requirements, etc. You will probably need to talk to the Planning Department as well as the Engineering Dept. of your jurisdiction to find out what information should be included. Usually, all of this information is included in a single AutoCAD file, but on different layers.

No, you should NOT have thought of this one. Unlike Glenn's, It has roofs draining into walls which will need a bunch of crickets to deal with, and the framing will get very expensive, in addition to not looking good. You may want to consider whether this overall design direction of many little gables on a large house is serving you well.

Kitchen/bath design. Lighting design. Landscape design. Deck design. Interior design. Field measurements/as-built services. Permit expediting. Energy consultant (i.e. energy calc's). Green building consultant. (for a start)

Michael, I always get good tips from you! I don't know how you find things like blocking a countertop hole into place. But genius! As I was watching you figure out the height of sink off-screen, I wanted to remind you that you can do dimensional math right in the DBX itself. (Which I'm sure you know, of course.)

Michael, Damn. How do find these little quirks?

Okay, here's my secret source. I've spoken at length with the Owner of the company, and he knows his stuff. A lot of his business comes from people who have tried to do this stuff on their own, and the doors have failed in one way or another. https://hiddendoorstore.com/product/secret-bookcase-door/

I LOVE the wall hatch tool. For remodelings where you are wanting to show a bunch of new sections of walls (like where a window is getting filled in), it is MUCH better than trying to break walls and then use different wall types in the same wall. Also, in the final plans where you may want to turn off wall layers, the hatch will extend to both sides of the wall, which looks graphically correct. Unfortunately, there is no way to set a default for hatches. (This should be corrected, and has been requested before.) The best you can do is to put in all the hatches, and with the hatch tool selected, group-select the hatches you want to change, and then edit them as a group.

This sounds suspiciously like a laptop with an auxiliary graphics card. (i.e. the Radeon). You need to explicitly set the laptop to use the Radeon card with X9, because otherwise it will use the onboard graphics processor, which can be very slow.

One issue with swinging bookcases is that they tend to rack, even if they are well made locally. Just slight racking, and you've got a problem. There are outfits that sell these bookcase doors prefabricated with internal metal rigid frames, and I wouldn't consider anything else.

What is your prior experience doing shop drawings for something like this? (Your question indicates that you haven't done this before.) Have you seen a sample of what they are expecting? Are you being asked to design all members and connections yourself, and would guards/handrails be included? Do they have sample details for you to incorporate? If this is your first time, you will be shocked at how many details and pages may be required. If they are expecting you to take responsibility for the design, too, there is MASSIVE liability involved for commercial stair design. You are showing just the architectural plans, but usually there are already structural plans & details available for something like this. Have you seen anything from an engineer? Here's something from a company that specializes in this: http://www.sdrawings.com/structural_steel_shop_drawings. You can see that they provide a fully engineered set of plans. If you are being asked to provide a fixed price for a package like this, there is no way that anyone here is likely to be able to give you advice, especially since there are unknowable engineering costs. There are lots of companies that provide this service. e.g. http://ussteelstairs.com/. Or just Google "steel stair shop drawings".

Is your design all that it could be? You're probably going to be spending tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of dollars on your project. Isn't it worth getting some good design advice from a seasoned pro? I've been on these forums for almost twenty years, and see many people posting their designs, hoping to pick the brains of everyone else. But let's be frank. The people who can give you the best advice do this for a living, and you need more help than can provided in a few well-meaning comments from other amateurs. I see some of these designs and think to myself, "Gosh, if they'd just put the kitchen over there, and flipped the bathroom over to the other side, they'd have a really great plan." I see roof lines that are a mess, windows that are ill-proportioned for the house, rooms that will be difficult to get furniture into, weird uses of materials on the facade, or kitchens that have layouts that are practically unusable. Ack! Enough lipstick on pigs. As an experiment, I'm offering a flat-rate consultation to help you get your own designs headed in the right direction. I am a licensed California architect and interior designer with over THIRTY YEARS of experience. You send me your designs in Chief Architect format along with your thoughts and goals by e-mail, and we'll have up to a two-hour online session where you'll get a "crit session" similar to what my architecture professors gave me, with suggestions on how to improve your design. I will be kind, but honest. If I see opportunities that you have missed or problems that I see, I'll tell you. You can ask any questions you want to, even about your project in general. If you later need to buy another hour or two, that can be arranged. However, I'm not going to do construction drawings or even detailed design drawings. This is intended to be a coaching session to help you do it yourself, not to sell you my own full-blown design services. I also have done sessions for design-build contractors who might aren't completely self-confident about their design skills. Even if you haven't gone to architecture school, you can now look like you have! If interested, go to http://www.richardmorrison.com/online-design-coaching/ . Thanks!

I have always had a demo plan, where the demo'd walls have been moved to the Demo layer, which is dashed. (Fast with the Layer Painter.) Then, I have the "Proposed" plan, which shows new and existing walls, with the new walls shown by using the Wall Hatch tool. (If you have multiple patches in a long wall, I think it's better to have multiple short hatches rather than breaking up the wall into many small pieces with different wall definitions. (More stable display.) You can also put the entire existing plan as a block on a dashed layer "below" the existing plan, so that when you remove a wall, the dashed wall lines appear.

No. Nor does it seem to be much of a priority. You are late to the party.

This is likely your problem. Set the CAD detail to the correct scale. (Maybe 1/16" = 1', or whatever). Lineweights and linescales are determined by this. BTW, you can have a different drawing scale for each CAD detail.

Alan, Have you set the drawing scale correctly for that CAD Detail under "Drawing Sheet Setup"?

David, the Distos generally are very accurate for distances, but less so for heights with the tilt sensor. (+/- .1 deg.) So for a 50' distance, the height accuracy could be off by 1", or 2" at 100'. Not sure how accurate you feel you need to be. I have a Nikon surveyor's level with a basic decimal rod, which is cheaper than a top end Disto. I like to use the client or the client's kid to hold the rod (which they find fun) and I get more accurate measurements than with a Disto. I also have a bipod that I can attach to the rod if I have to do it single-handed. I think you should have a Disto in any event, but maybe your PLS is fine. You can tape a piece of cardboard to the rod and get distances. There are special glasses you can get to let you see the laser dot much more easily. http://www.tigersupplies.com/Products/Leica-GLB30-Red-Laser-Glasses__LEI780117.aspx If you just need approximate (within a few inches, say) distances, the surveyor's level also has stadia lines, where you measure between the lines on the rod and multiply by 100, if you don't want to mess with a laser, too.