JiAngelo

Bob, I fired up X12, worked exclusively on the CTF4 version. I raised the roof 12" to allow headers over those windows and used an 8.5" pitch, adjusting the dormer room to fit. I then switched to the second floor and drew a truss, changed it to Attic, then opened the detail and increased the middle bottom chord to 9-1/4" (the floor). I copied the trusses, using a 4-ply at each end to support the joists under the dormers. On the deck side, I held the dormer back a few feet to keep the hip look with larger windows. The attic space is a little over 600sf and you can reach it using your original stairwell, but the head height doesn't work on the landing. I've attached the X12 file. CR WILLIAMS for CTF4-X12.zip

Bob, I am still on X16. I've dabbled with X17, but it doesn't excite me. I've attached the updated file. Version 3 is using your perimeter walls, Version 4 is using a 16" truss heel height. I abbreviated your file name. I forgot to answer your original question. You didn't have auto-roofs turned on. That's why the roofs weren't changing to hip. When I turned it on it said you had some edited roofs which it deleted and redrew as all hips. Also, ignore top floor won't work with dormers (because it is ignoring top floor.) And I just realized you have floor to ceiling windows, which means you need a floor above to place headers over the exterior openings on the second floor. (or you need a raised heel height for trusses to hang on those headers.) I went back to the second file you'd sent me. I unchecked ignore top floor, changed 12" ceiling height to 1-1/2" (basically a 2x6 sill atop the floor structure.) And then turned on autoroofs. (for version 3) In version 4 I changed your heel height to 16", deleted the perimeter walls and only used the dormer walls, adjusted to fit under the side roof planes. This version has the roof building off the outer walls +16". In both I extended the roof down over the stairwell to encapsulated it within the roof planes. (I trimmed those walls to 6" overhang so that it didn't project past the Hip ridge. The dormer is drawn at 97 3/8" ceiling height. I didn't want to mess with the 60" kneewalls until you had stairwell figured out. In V4 I went ahead and built some room trusses along the main area, using a quadruple truss where the dormer starts to thrust out. I also created a cross section to make sure the stair height was equal or greater to 81" nosing to ceiling. It looks like you may need to raise that heel height to 18" or 20". V3 will build the roof trusses on top of the 3rd floor. (another downfall of that method.) In both I tried extending the dormer to the rear of the home, but it is not centered on the door below, and can't cantilever past since there is no header below to carry the load. Take a look, I hope this helps guide you. CR WILLIAMS for CTF3.zip CR WILLIAMS for CTF4.zip

Just to clarify, Is your maximum building height 35'? And are you trying to use all of the 3rd floor? I ask because you've built your 3rd floor directly over your second floor perimeter walls. The room defaults to 12" tall. It should default to 109 3/8" or similar if you are ignoring top floor. Typically you check ignore 3rd floor because you want the roof built on top of the 2nd floor walls and somewhere inside this rooftop you plan to place an attic area inside of trusses. Here's a plan I'm working on now. The red lines are my truss control lines. The blue lines define a 5' kneewall that slopes to 8' ceilings on the left side of the house and 9' ceilings on the right side of the house. The blue lines are my attic room limits. If my roof was hipped, I'd have a red outer box and a blue inner box over this same area. Here's my room trusses Red is 9' ceiling area, White is 8' ceiling area, Blue is the 8' ceiling area for the shorter trusses on the left. I did this to stay under 35' from the front door sill which is our area's requirement. Applying this logic to your current model results in the following. I used an 8/12 pitch to determine where my 5' kneewalls and 8' ceiling heights would be within this hipped area. This assumes you are permitted 32' 9" to the ridge. And a 9/12 pitch would widen the room areas, but the highest ridge is then 34' 6". Is that allowed? Also, notice you have a couple of greater problems. Your stairwell & door are in the wrong place. That's not where stairs up from below lands. I've drawn the correct location above with a note. The correct location also requires 81" ceiling minimum at the top of the steps and all hips won't achieve that at 8/12 or 9/12. Here's a 3D cross section at 5' high. Again the 2nd door needs to fall under the roof line. Here's a dormer drawn to capture the 2nd door (I've deleted the first.) The interior shot shows 5' kneewalls rising to 8' ceiling plane. Notice the door still cuts the exterior roof plane. You can widen the dormer and extend the roofline down (cathedral into the stairwell), but its hard to mirror that look on the other side because the two gables bumps aren't equilateral. If you could give me a bit more direction, like max height and what usable room space you are trying to achieve, I can work through it with you. I would also assume you want a rear dormer overlooking the view from the deck. Let me know your thoughts.

Gene, I happen to be working on a ranch. Here's the steps I followed. Make a blank second floor and specify a ceiling height (97-1/8") and your floor structure (9‐1/4"+3/4"). In Build Roof dbx select ignore Top (2nd) Floor. Draw your room. Select and Open those trusses and select "Attic Truss" Open 3d view and turn on floor surfaces amd you will see the plywood hovering above the bottom chord of a standard room truss. Pick one of those trusses and open truss detail. Break the bottom chord between the attic room ends and increase the middle bottom chord to 9-1/4" Close the truss detail and go back to the 3d view and you will see all the floor trusses should be shown correctly. Hope this helps.

Check to make sure lower walls are aligned.

Add another floor then tell roof dialog to ignore 3rd floor. Any walls and rooms you draw up there will automatically fit under the roof extending from the second floor.

You will use a pony wall with block on bottom and 2x4 on top. Set the pony height to 4' bottom and in a 7 foot room the 2x4 upper wall will be 3' 2nd floor will be 9' studs. Initially all walls will be stacked framing. Select the common wall and set to balloon frame. If auto frame is on, Chief should adjust. Below your post click add files to include a picture. If you screen shot and press control v it should paste inline. It would save me from guessing wrong. And I'm not back to my computer to draw something wrong and send it to you.

A cross section would be nice. But from what is described you have a balloon framing situation. A floor above and below but instead of joists resting on a lower wall, you want it to balloon past the floor and make both the upper and lower walls framed as one. It is still two floors. Open the structure dbx and you will find options to change the framing methods.

Choose 600dpi for best results at actual size. Use 1200dpi if you plan to enlarge the image. The latter is what we send as proofs to agencies and PowerPoint slides.

In your new model, select the wall plane and you will see why the gap is there. I moved it left initially to cleaned up. But was still getting a gap on the exterior views. I switched to the exterior view and assuming you are done moving exterior walls, turned off autoroof and broke the planes and extended them to match your picture. This changed the interior wall plane. I see you cleaned up the corner wall upstairs by keeping it the same 3-3/8" "Attic Divider Wall" and adding an exterior surface to a new wall definition. That works. Now you need to work on your stair hole Glad I could help. Good luck.

Here's a response I started yesterday. It is incomplete, but i just saw your reply this morning and it appears you have caught on to some of the problems I discuss. YESTERDAY Overall you are doing great. I'm also seeing where some of my instructions were vague or incomplete. On your drawing, the exterior side of the main wall framing that you draw should match up and the exterior surfaces fall outside of that match up. Imagine you were framing a continuous wall with different exteriors of varying thickness, like stucco vs. cultured stone vs. vinyl siding. All three can be present on one continuous wall with different material regions applied along different sections, however, most often we break this into 3 different wall types with each aligned on the same side. This is also generally true if interior finish thicknesses change, and across all levels, including foundation. Here's an example using several of your wall styles. Notice they all line up to the top end (exterior side). Some exteriors stick out farther than others, and some interiors are thicker than others. Except for stairwells and two story vaulted areas, It doesn't matter as much on the inside which way the wall exterior is facing. But when you draw the overall building, the exterior foundation, first floor and second floor measurements to framing should all be identical, unless there is a cantilever or some other feature that changes that rule. They need to stack for siding to be continuous per floor. You'll also discover that varying thicknesses across floors can lead to errors at intersections of various walls (see further below.) From this photo and your commentary, I understand now why you framed the lower 2x4 walls flanking the 2x6 invisible wall. However the 6" beam is acting as a band board (rim joist). I would have used the 6" invisible wall here entirely and replaced the rim joist with the proper beam size or plies. I would reverse the wall so that its exterior side is to the garage door side and it lines up with the exterior siding wall above. I normally draw my beams with a 4" blue angle hatch with a transparent background so that I can see the posts, pier pads & framing underneath. I also change them to pressure treated lumber so that I can see them in 3D framing view. If you drew this floor beam to match the exterior side of your 6" invisible wall, then raised it 11", and made it 11" tall and 6" thick. Then you can add 4" columns on either end. Chief doesn't let me copy studs to an invisible wall, so copy the columns and make them 1-1/2" thick like a stud. Place the first stud against the column, this one has the bolts, then place a second "stud" beside this one. If you drill 2" holes centered on the nuts you will find it fits perfectly and allows drywall to be hung without the bolts interfering. Change the 4x4 column to steel and to paint it red, I temporarily placed a "lally column" to copy the color to the steel columns. I was tempted to use the lally column for their baseplates, but the pipes are round. Here's the 3D framing view. Notice my steel beam, which is over the invisible wall is in line with the patio invisible wall. Next problem is on the exterior view you will find these 4 walls have exterior surfaces that don't line up. One reason is the porch hip roof needs to extend back to the garage roof. Creating that detail I'd save until I was done with auto roofs & exterior wall framing. Then I'd break the plane and extend it to intersect the garage roof. I'm pretty sure the facia/roof plane below it 45's back to the french door wall, but I don't have that picture. (left picture below) Pretty sure these roofs and cladding differentials is why these artifacts are occurring. Initially I thought you were doing this to remodel the upstairs and downstairs rooms and the 42" vs 52" was impacting your interior photos/plans of what you intended to do. Now it feels like you are just running Chief through its paces comparing what you draw to a real world scenario for practice. That is a good way to learn. I've often wished Architects and Engineers were required to frame in the field 5 years like plumbers and electricians are before getting licensure. For what it is worth, here's a few tips that work for me. 1. Dimension to framing/foundation, not finish surfaces. You can do that later if you really need it, but knowing your framing all matches up is critical. 2. Have a single common consistent theme of wall thicknesses. You have 3-3/8, 3-1/2 and 4-9/16 for what I'd call a 4" wall. You have 5-5/16, 5-7/16, 5-1/2, for what I'd call a 6" wall. If its not in the wall label, and the walls aren't lined up on a consistent side, visually how are you to know if any contiguous wall has its framing offset from another or with the wall above/below it? Personally I have an aversion to these odd measurements. When I first started drafting projects I drew to the nominals. 4" 6" 8" walls. This carried over to Generic Cadd and then Chief Architect back in the 90's. I did my own framing back then and I knew various rooms actually ended up 1/2 - 1" bigger depending on which side the dimensioning favored. I dimension walls to the inside of stairwells and 2 story areas so that framing stacked, and inside of bathroom tub or shower walls to ensure fixtures fit. 3. Field adjust. Plans may be drawn precise then you find your foundation is slightly out of square. Or the house you are adding an addition to is 1/2" out of plumb. Field conditions require us to adapt and overcome. Framers never frame as tightly as trim carpenters. TODAY I'm going to stop here and review your reply and new model.

Hello, Step #3 was to extend the invisible wall to the end and make it visible. It looks like you extended the left wall and turned the corner with it. It looks like the invisible wall may still there creating cuts in the ceiling. I don't have these cuts in my interior. Step #5 was to turn the corner with the front wall (which has an exterior siding surface) and because it is a gable the turned wall has to be changed to a hip for the roofs to work. It should extend back far enough that you won't see wood, you will see siding. The gable wall I can't read your note in the next to last picture, however I had noticed it doesn't match up and this is because your 3" porch wall has a thicker stucco exterior surface and your 6" bearing walls is just 1/2" drywall painted to look like siding. If the walls have the same finish, then it cleans up that gable offset. The turned wall from Step #5 needs to match the exterior finish method you choose. (I probably should ask why below this gable wall you have (2) four inch walls flanking a 6" invisible wall that appears centered on the each other rather than lining up on one side...) With regards to your 9' soffit height and Picture #1. There's an arrow pointing to those roof lines not matching up. the left is slightly higher than the upper right. I missed that. It is in my model as well. Lowering the bonus room to 2.5" eliminated it making it all one roof plane. On the front porch over the door, I'm getting 8'4" (100" frame to frame) Picture 5 looks like the porch is only 3" deep not 11" deep (from top of subfloor). So I created an angled Stucco 5 wall splitting the bonus room in two. The angle is directly over the top of the french door wall. I opened up the little bonus triangle room and changed its floor structure to 3" instead of 11". NOTE: The triangle room does mess with the outside corner above right of the french doors. You can play with extending the exterior layers or put an outside corner over it. Now the soffit over the porch is 9' And where you are measuring 9' 6 3/4" is based on a 7-1/4" eave board. I'm only getting 9' 3 3/4". Open your auto roof dialog and switch to structure tab. Change the last "Eave Fascia" to 11" instead of 7-1/4". Now I'm at exactly 9 feet. Last. Just because your exterior is wrapped in 11" fascia doesn't mean your roof is 11". Every picture you've shown me looks at most to be 2x8 framing. The porch wall is 9' tall, but the room inside is only 100"? How do the interior 11" floor rafters bear? Look at Picture 5 - the top plate of the french door wall runs under the electrical wire, no where near 11" below the subfloor. Same picture #5, look to the upper right rafters. those tails appear to rest on the outer edge of the subfloor. If we came back plumb with the inside wall below and measured up from the subfloor those rafters appear to be 2-1/2" above the subfloor. (the height of the bonus room that made the roof work.) Hope this helps.

Your outside photo verifies the gutter differential I was concerned about in my photo below and obviously the hip stays. Let's start over. See my notes based on an elevation view of the entire original building. On the second floor plan, I've numbered the steps you need to follow. . Switch back to the overall elevation view and you will find I'm a hair off. Coincidentally it matches your gable vent FYI - The 3" bonus room setting is what it took for the bonus and left bedroom roof planes to match. It was a matter of trial and error. The 1" was a starting point. Once you are done drawing exterior walls/roof, turn auto roofs/frame off and delete the dividing wall. Or put it on a different layer and turn it off, or just make it invisible. Just remember as long as it exists your room schedules will show the two rooms instead of one. And if you need to play with the roof again you need to add that dividing wall back again to make any changes. Hope this helps.

Hello, I looked at your plan this morning. My original method assumed you wanted this done with auto-roofs as much as possible based on the information you provided. To that end, renaming the attic wall to bonus (for example) makes it a real room and Chief will automatically raise the rafters and this gives you pretty much what you wanted. However, upon reviewing your plans, this creates a different problem that I will address later. First, we need to address your pictures. The room appears to be framed with 2x6 rafters. It also appears you are measuring your 10 inches to the roof sheathing, not from a 42" top of wall line. In fact your 10" is derived by measuring below the double top plate down from the sheathing. If those are 2x6 rafters, the ~7 1/4" plumb cut plus 3" top plates = 10 1/4" I overlayed these items on your cross section view. Is this correct? Is the other side framed with 2x12's to be at 3'6" or are those rafters furred to create a 3'6" measurement? I don't have pictures of that side, so I can't tell. . Back to my original proposed solution, renaming the attic room to bonus (for example) makes it a real room and Chief will now build the rafters on top of this one inch wall. Make sure the two end walls are gables, not hip. Then change the left wall to an 11.45 : 12 pitch. The result is 10 3/16", which is pretty close to what you original asked. I would lower the room to 13/16" and you should be at 10" exactly. However this doesn't match your pictures. And that porch with a hipped roof creates another problem. One that I solved initially by extending the bonus room over the porch. i can change the wall to a hip after I'm done with auto roofs. However the gutters will never match up unless the heel is raised over those garage rafters. Note, the model is missing some textures I don't have on my system. Please review and let me know your thoughts..

Create a room in that attic space that is 1" tall, no flat ceiling. That should raise the left attic wall and raise the lower rafter soffit.