I deal with three counties and one city here in northern California.  And the various agencies use various outside plan check companies.  The quality of the plan check process varies considerably.  To make things fun, various plan checkers seem to want random lines from the building code regurtated on the plans.  I have a standard set of general notes that have been compiled by adding red-line items to the boilerplate.

Aftre 30 years of design experience, I have yet to have a bullet proof plan submittal.

What seems to be the best practice is to ask the plan checkers to submit their correction letter in a word format.  This way, I can cut and paste their comments in my response letter.

If anyone comes up with a magic pill, I am all ears.

Good luck!!

Hello,

One of my local clients has a daughter that lives in Folsom, CA that needs a deck designed for a special needs child.  If any on you out there are interested, get back to me and I will send you the contact information.

Thanks in advance,

MIke Borean

I have found that PDF files really bog down Chief.  I've been using the "Snip" application on windows to make a file that is much smaller.  And, you can snip just the portion of the PDF you want to you don't have to deal with the entire page.

Good luck!

Or, just turn off the the trusses in the display options.  Do it all the time.

Yep, I do that all the time!  Making a CAD detail of the foot print takes less than a minute.  Well worth the effort.  Another benefit is that you know right away if the plan runs over the setbacks.

Once I make the detail, I call it "plan footprint", and copy/paste it onto the site plan, I delete the original detail.  This reduces the chance of putting an outdated footprint on the site plan.  I am always juggling multiple jobs, and anything that reduces my chance to mess up is a definite plus.

Love to hear what everyone else does!

Kind regards,

Great discussion folks!  I have a pretty simple method. I take the floor plan, set the layer set to aerial view, turn off anything other than the walls, decks, stairs, etc., make a CAD detail. I group the resulting CAD detail, copy and past it onto my site plan.  

I tried inside, outside the building.  Just too clunky to work well.  Especially with a  price north of $300.  Hopefully, they will improve the product.  It is a great concept, just not a great product.  If anyone has had a better experience, I'd love to hear about it.

Hey Dermont!  Insulting Chief users probably isn't a fantastic business practice.  Just say'n.  I use Chief for a living, am quite busy, and yet I have the time to keep up on the forums.  If I sold/developed CA for a living, I would be intently interested what the users have to say.

Now that I have busted your chops a little, let me finish by saying that I absolutely love using Chief.  It is the third CAD platform that I have used (starting with a DOS based program), and by a huge margin, it kicks butt for residential projects.  As in any software, there are opportunities for improvements.  Us users typically use it every day, and some nights.  We are the experts on how well it works or doesn't work.  Small items that may seem trivial to a developer, add up to huge irritations to the folks who have to get plans out the door.  When you improve the program, enhance our work flow, we make more money!  When we make more money, we hire folks, buy additional licenses, and keep paying for the SSA.

IMHO, you should be reading the forums every day and be engaged in the discussion.

Have a great weekend! 

Moasure tool update.  Well folks, I have it an honest try, but the Moasure is simply too finicky for real world use.  It works well if you have environments  as shown in the videos (flat ground, minor obstacles, and easy access).  The concept is awesome and in the future if/when they improve the product I will purchase it, but for now, I am returning the unit.  I appreciate the 30 day money back guarantee.

Was really hoping this would be a game changer.  For now I'm back to graph paper, a tape measure and a laser measure.  

How is Chief considering this an interior room?  

And, where did you get the glass panel railing?  Way cool!!

Going to pull the trigger on purchasing the Moasure One.  They offer a 30 day money back guarantee so the risk is minimal.  I will test the unit and report back.  Stay tuned!!

Yes, Eric I certainly did.  .

Has anyone tried "Moasure" https://www.moasure.com/?  The system is very intriguing, if it works.

If it works as advertised, it will be a real game changer for preparing as-built drawings.

Thanks!  

Just got a call from an old client who needs plans for a new house in the Oakland hills.  I try to stay in a three county radius and not interested in working with a new building department and learning where their bear traps and flaming hoops are.  If you have local knowledge and are interested, reach out and I will give you my client's contact information.

Thanks in advance.

You can get an exemption for a solar system.  I understand that you have to get someone out there to measure the available sunlight and write a report.  I investigated this a while back and couldn't get any concrete answers.  The owners decided that it was easier just to install the solar system rather than jump through the flaming hoops.

Gotta love California.

Here in California, we are required to have 42" clear width.

I'd think about going to a 7 3/4" riser.  This would eliminate one tread and, IMHO is more comfortable to climb than a 6 13/16" riser.

Alcehmy Jim.  You missed one small detail.  If half of the venting is at the eve line, the required venting is 1/300.  Fairly easy to achieve with eve and continuous ridge venting.

I agree that closed cell insulation solves the venting issue, but it is 4x the cost.  In my area anyway.

Well, learned something today.  Didn't know about the "balloon through" function!

One of the reasons I check this forum daily.

Thanks!!

A lot of my work involves trussed roofs.  After building the trusses, I frame the roof for the facia and varge rafters.  Problem with this is that CA adds ridge boards that don't exist in trussed roofs.  There doesn't seem to be a way to frame without ridge boards or to set the ridge board dimensions at 0.  If there is a work around, I'd love to hear it.

Also....  Is there a way to frame a roof where one roof California or over frames over another roof.  In my previous CAD, I could trim the bottom of one roof to the top of another and the framing acted accordingly.  This program even added a valley plate on top of the lower roof and below the rafters of the upper roof.  That may be too much to ask for, but one can only  hope.

Love to hear what y'all have to say.

Thanks in advance.

In my area, if you have eve and gable vents, you can cut the vent area to 1/300th.  

An acquaintance needs as-built drawings for a house in Sacramento, CA.  It is too far for me to drive, and I'm just too darn busy.  If you are interested, reply and I will send you the contact information.

Thanks

Very nicely done!  Although I'm pretty good with Chief, I picked up a few gems from the video.

Thanks!!

Hello fellow chief'ers.  Was wondering if anyone as found a command to draw a line with an arrow on both ends.  I use double arrow lines frequently and right now I have to draw a line with an arrow, then open it and select the option for arrow on both ends.  Not a major pain in the backside, but I get irritated easily.

Thanks and have a good day.