PMMully

The plan I sent is not 100%, it was meant to serve as a playground on how to best built "custom porches". Let me look at the real plan. Good catch, I have probably have it wrong.

@snestor, here is the plan, l did fix the header. Perrinporchwithrailings.plan

@SNestor as I was struggling with the connection, I went into an elevation, was able to grab the header, and adjust it. Fine points I guess...

@SNestor I fully understand and you can bet I learned from you today :-) I took your inputs which allowed me to figure out the spacing, etc. This is pretty close to reality... I generated a flat roof, then put a custom roof plane on it to get what I want. Not sure why I can not get the header to stay connected to the inside of the outside wall.

@snestor This plan is a complicated two-story. The picture I submitted is a simplified version for the forum and just learn the details of the process. In this case, the posts must be placed exactly as they are on the house. And the roof must show a pitch. This drawing will go through PE engineering for permitting. We are essentially going to modify the headers over the SGDs in my diagram as the SGD will be coming out in favor of one long one that double the length. The current flat wood/asphalt roof will be removed and replace with ledgers on the new headers, etc. Do the drawing must be tight-tight in order for the PE to sign off. The technique you describe would be perfect for conceptual discussions.

@snestor I should have also specified that I used a railing wall, post to beam as well, and it had the exact same result. I went back to the railing version. I see the newel spacing now, great tip. I was able to eliminate a few due to spacing and remove the other center one on the short side by setting the spacing longer than the length of the wall. So that part is solved, and the issue now is I need to show an existing flat asphalt roof with those headers. I have been playing with roof settings but can not seem to get what I want just yet (flat roof attached to headers with hangers). I will look up your videos. I will look at your screen room library though!

Looking for the best practice to build porches with flat roofs that are attached to a dwelling on 1-3 sides, have headers under the roof on any sides that are not attached to the dwelling. The headers can be LVL or concrete precast, supported by columns that could be 4x4 or larger, solid pour, or filled cell CMU, etc. In this snapshot below, I make two CMU stem walls with a monolithic foundation and made the room type a porch. All is well, except for the fact I can not seem to control how many newells/posts there are, or the spacing. The second thing I any roof generation seems to be pretty limited. Note I have the gutter removed off the tile roof on the one side facing the porch. What I have done in the past was created a slab or patio, did a custom roof plane, and added a framing joist as the header, and posts manually. I am asking if there is a better way to take what I have below, gain control of the number of posts and positions, and generate a flat roof in one shot? Or, what would be the best practice overall? I have been looking through the training videos but nothing is jumping out at me.

I deleted the original when I realized I messed up, and you beat me to it with an answer! Thanks Joe!

Joe, this is a roof barrel tile, I am not seeing how to actually change the color to something else on the palette. When I do, it is losing the actual tile look.

I might have just found one example!!!

@robdyck PRESTO, like magic! Thank you so very much! I have yet to find anything in CA that I can not do. The hard part is finding where exactly the instructions on how to do something are located. This forum is a godsend.

I am doing an exterior garage plan that will have a convertible option to turn some of the garage space into an apartment, all one floor. I designed the converted state to include interior walls to dial in slab sanitary, electrical, etc. But, the actual permit will be for an accessory structure only with no interior walls. I noticed both exterior and interior walls appear to be on the "Walls, Normal" so if I turn it off I lose my exterior walls also. I was hoping to just turn off all the internal walls for the truss engineering and final permitting. Is there a way to handle this outside of just making a copy of the plan and deleting all the interior walls?

@Alaskan_Son you nailed it. Worked like a charm. I did try and make it a symbol other than the suggested fixture, but it did not work. What worked was "Fixture/Exterior". To @Dermot's question about cad blocks, I do not really have the experience to answer if having a cad block added to a schedule. Maybe 'yall can chime in. I guess if you had a set of grouped components (i.e. "sub-SKUs") in the block that mapped up to one "super-SKU" as a package, yes, I see where that could be helpful. No use case for me is jumping out though at the moment.

I suspected that would be the answer. Thank you. I did convert it to an exterior fixture but I still did not see the schedule tab show up.

A typical practice in my area is to have a table with all connectors in it, with callouts throughout the plan. So for example, if I have an LVL and I have two concealed hangers that need to installed in CMU,along with 50 typical truss straps for CMU, and a handful of other connectors for say a girder truss, high uplift, etc., So they get the appropriate annotations on the plan so the builder knows what specific connector goes where. For example, if your PE specifies a Simpson HGUS410 for an LVL, you grab it out of the library, all good. It would be great to have a connector schedule to organize it. I created a custom category, a custom schedule, all good. But I can not find a way to mark the "show in schedule" like for a window, door, etc. in the simpson library. So I was hoping to create my own field called Schedule, but it is not gertting it done. The cool thing is it does shows up in the material list, so that part is great to price/order.

Hi all, I was looking to find a way to create a custom schedule for specialized hardware like the Simpson stuff in the libraries. There is no "schedule" metadata field. Is it possible to add one so this the objects could be added to a custom schedule? I played around with the Object Information panel creating a custom object field, but I can not get it to work. Ideas?

@GeneDavisjust absolutely awesome!!!!! Very very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Nice plan!!! I have a somewhat similar issue so I will be watching this thread :-)

@solver As always your suggestions are solid. I am not exactly sure how I got the height right on the first drawing and could not figure it out anywhere else :-). I also did not realize your original video post had videos behind one another, so I missed the main show. I sort of got it now, but he is right, it can be a little bit "funny" but clearly super powerful. Thanks again, we can put this one to bed.

The one on the left is a test and illustrates that regardless of me tracing a straight line, it is winding up on the floor. I can see it in the plan view as an object, and I figured out that that it was actually under the cabinets, so I moved it out for illustrative purposes. The right shows a real kitchen I am in the middle of and notice the molding on the hood top. That one worked just fine, and it a 3d polyline. But for the life of me, I can not recreate what I did on the right into the left. I compared object properties, tried a molding polyline vs 3D, same result. @solverI was thinking about your tip here...

If I understand your question correctly,... the answer always seems to be "it depends" :-). Where I am, there are simply none other than the Florida Build Code (now 2020/V7). Every PE I work with have their own style, so I have created layout templates for each of them. I tried a generic layout, based on what I, as a builder thought was best from looking at many plans from many sources.... it did not work out so well. Fortunately, CA has the templating, user libraries, etc, so it is coming together. As the industry matures, I imagine the Building Information Model (BIM) will start to take hold. I understand it is big in Europe. Packages like Revit are sporting it. I have been doing a lot of kitchens lately and using the NKBA dimensions. However, nobody locally seems to care.... around here anyway.

I am using the Molding Polyline tool as you suggested to attach crown molding to some of the hood objects in the library that are not normal cabinets. When I place it in the plan, select the trim, etc., It seems that sometimes I can attach it to the edge, and others it just shows up on the floor. Not sure exactly what I did when I worked. In the plan, I am just tracing the edge, set the molding, is it tied to the actual library object maybe? I used the 1550 Style EE Hood 3 Panel. I went back to the plan where I got it to work, I actually used a 3D polyline, set the molding, etc. I used the Arched Raised Panel Mantle Range Hood. I was able to draw it along the edge, set the molding, and it worked just fine. I simply can not get it to do the same thing on the other plan. Everything winds up on the floor :-) I know this is something simple.

Have you seen the jumbo quartz that is now coming available? Pretty darn big. My local granite shops are starting to have 72"x 134-144" slabs now. Apparently, the no-seam message has been received. I have done one with a small set of drawers on either side as you describe, turned out great. I have several countertops that are also very long in these monster homes, can not get away from the seams. In that case, we use the best fabricator we can find. The one I use often has a $1.8M CNC table, driven off of digital templates, all robotic, water reclaim, very sophisticated, very cool. You have to really look to find his seams, and I know where they are! Thanks folks for all the inputs.

We used to do it that way at one time. But you wind up effectively sacrificing a cabinet where all the stubbing comes up (yes you can build out and hide it). If one is happy with that, so be it. The use of a plumbing (sanitary, supply) wall allows the plumbing to come through the cabinet back just like any other wall, and any cabinet that has power has no power strung through it. We do high-end custom homes and the market wants a clean look. It is very simple, clean, cheap, and adds stabilization and structure as these massive islands (60" by 120" or larger are not unusual). My drawing shows only 4 cabinets as an example, we would not likely employ this technique for such a small island. Most of these islands also have bar seating on one side as well for 4-6, with a 12 cabinet in front of them for storage. and supports if the overhand is gets large. Relying only on cabinetry for such large islands can be problematic based on the quality in our experience. Most importantly, it adds a few inches of freedom for the final setup as the layout of the plumbing and electrical can vary a small bit based on how they pulled the tapes from the form boards, if they accounted for foam insulation, etc. Like all construction, many ways to do it, It's just the way we do it. In actual practice, there is often an outlet on each side where the plumbing wall ends are, cased by two trim panels, which is why they basically use fillers to trim the gap. The trades and cabinet guys seem to like it also. Happy trades, happy builder, happy customer. @Alaskan_Sonyou nailed what I was looking for, thank you so very much. I should have suspected it to be configurable :-), like the schedules.

The picture is above. The plumbing wall is just a 2x6 wall, with or without drywall. Sometimes we drywall them for stiffness. It allows plumbing and or electrical to have a place to enter the island from below (i.e. slab, floor). From there, there is lots of room to plumb sinks and or install outlets, etc. Yes, sorry, MTO is Material Take Off. I am starting to dabble with the Components and material list master aspects to start to apply to cost information for the actual build. So I am trying to use whatever it is in CA that would approximate the real way it will actually be ordered and built. So take a cabinet for example. If I add a side panel, it could be $100 extra, etc., so it is fairly easy for cabinets. I saw a video on custom crown molding today that went into real detail on how to build it up for multi-layer crown. So I am looking at the tools under the materials list to see if I can offer a decent MTO/cost aspect of my service to some of the people I do business with. My first runs at this are "if you can really nail this, you get all my design business". So, in the past, I have used things like fake cabinets to close out the plumbing wall gaps, fillers, whatever it took to make it "look" right as the plan was regarded as conceptual only. But, the materials list does not reflect reality as I took a shortcut as I was learning. So my real question is, what would be the best CA tool to reflect the finishing of each end of the island as above so that I could most accurately provide the materials list for a kitchen that had an island with a very common center wall. I do not think it is a cabinet. So far, the material list for standard stuff like doors, flooring, etc, seems to be simple enough.