M-Reed

As I tend to focus on no more than one maybe two projects depending on size and scope, My attention is on you. I am winding down on my latest custom home and will soon be available for those interested. Max "Maxie" Humphreys SRC Designz maxrhj@srcdesignz.com

SRC Designz is offering help for Home Pro projects as well as Chief Premier plans and / or models. I'm Maxie Reed and am retired partially after 51 years in construction and 28 years in Design and Drafting (Using Chief since Version 3.0, 3D Home Architect by Broderbund and AutoCAD prior) My focus is on construction documents with particular attention to buildability. With over 50 years building homes and sub contracting as a master carpenter / Cabinet Maker I tend to save my clients costly errors, much more than my fees for plans / consulting. References are certainly available as are examples on request. I look forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Max 'Maxie" Humphreys SRC Designz maxrhj@srcdesignz.com

I realize its late to respond, I've been busy and just read this. Having dealt with Colorado codes for many years, The best thing to do for the RES-Check requirement on a basement finish is to set it up just as you would for a new basement. You will find, as I did, it takes every possible measure to overcome even one of the basement requirements. EG: I had a finished basement without insulation under the slab. All my added insulation points such as roof and exterior wall barely got the project by. The code boys there know this and if you try to present the basement alone it usually will not pass since the basement slabs are almost always existing and without insulation. Make sense? Maxie

I tend to make things work without complexity. I like this as I can review all schedules in one place for editing. For example, I like to create a "shadow" effect around my schedule borders. With all schedules in place, I can copy paste this shadow over to each schedule and adjust to size. Also, it's eay to check content updates all in one view. I used the main floor plan as every schedule item is usually located in that view. Simple really and I am not wanting more layer use. Thats me. The real solution is for a setting when creating schedules to specify location and / or layer without having to manually adjust. Again, simplicity is key.

Create a default blank plan to provide third party, As-Buit drafters. This plan would contain all your settings of course. I realize this doesn't solve existing as-builts, but it prevents further issues. I request this any time I do work for another user. As to the converting, it's always a problem no matter how many adjustments are made. I can usually re-create model faster.

I approached this by selecting a drawing such as the main floorplan to generate all the schedules you will need in your plan set. Once generated, move them off to the side, out of the normal view in layout so as to not be seen. You can then select the schedules you desire and copy / paste them into other layout views. Just drag layout box border over enough so as to see schedules, copy / paste to page you desire, and reset border. No need to worry about turning off or on. The schedules will update automatically as they should. I like to use my windows / doors schedules in multiple views. This works well.

I realize this is an older post that Andy from UK brought to front with his reply. Adding input, I had a request for a hidden door within a closet to access a hidden gun room. Obviously a 12" deep shoe rack style door would not open without a bevel. The bevel / muntin would tend to make the hidden part pointless. In my situation I was able to address this by mounting the door on a tracked upright that was also hinged, allowing door to push back and then open on the hinges. Admittedly, my door was a small unit so not much weight to handle although weight was not a factor using a caster for support. if needed. This setup will also take care of arches or angle top units. It would require a wingwall of sorts to mount the track to if a sidewall is not available as was in my design. Just my opinion offered to those of you who tend to be DIY oriented as I am. LOL

No, the home pro forum mixes the seeking help / offering services. You are good to go. See my post under offering services by Maxie Reed

SRC Designz is offering help for Home Pro projects as well as Chief Premier plans and / or models. I'm Maxie Reed and am retired partially after 51 years in construction and 28 years in Design and Drafting (Using Chief since Version 3.0, 3D Home Architect by Broderbund and AutoCAD prior) I look forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Max 'Maxie" Humphreys SRC Designz maxrhj@srcdesignz.com Anyone wishing more info, please send a request for PDF plan examples and references from various sources. Also, I can send a PDF of SRC pricing

Remember, you can place a support beam / header within the wall above in order to maintain the code minimum head room requirement.

I sent you a private message with contact info. Anytime.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. Every program I have followed (Softplan, Datacad, Vectorworks, AutoCad, and many others) all have adopted the subscription model.

It's been years (1995 - CA4) when I first started asking about brick sills for windows. Now 2024, some 29 years later.... Brick Window Sills? Maxie Reed

I realize you may have already made agreement with another Chief Pro but, in case not, I would like to encourage you to at least discuss with me your options. I am a veteran Chief Architect user since version 3.0 and AutoCAD prior to that as well as a master builder for 40 years. It is my intention to focus on As-Built work for clients such a you as well as Architects and designers. Depending on your location, I will consider travel to your home site as part of the project. Not only dimensions but all structural elements are included. Will combine with site survey if available or will contract a survey to be done if not. Feel free to reach out, I will be in touch within a 24 hour period. Sincerely, Maxie Reed Location: Texas maxrhj@gmail.com

Anyone remember 2008? Pretty crazy time for all. I was in Colorado at the time and my business was booming with many high-end designs coming my way for the Northern Colorado area. Then the bottom fell out and almost all the local builders went bust. The few that kept afloat did so by changing. So, you ask, what kind of change? This is where most will disagree. The first thing done was to cut all expenses possible. And yes, that means some of the extra help had to go. These guys did their best to help them get other jobs too. Bottom line though, without trimming the fat, they would have been out of a job anyway. The builder's started wearing more "hats" and did a lot of the work themselves. Some scaled personal expenses down to save money. There are lots of things that can be done to cut costs for sure. Next, was something they did not do, a price increase. If anything, they dropped what they could. You ask why? No rocket science here. You have a market going south and homeowners losing their homes right and left. Many jobs were lost and people were having a hard time to make ends meet. The government bailed out the banks who caused the crash, but the builder, suppliers, and subs were all left holding the bag. That said, who had the finances to pay more? Seriously. But, obviously enough folks had the same mindset, and many did survive. When the market started coming back, guess who got the work. Now it's 2022 and the economy is shaking hard. There is very good chance the 2008 crash will be child's play in comparison. I know many feel that's simply not going to happen and so we continue on as before even though we were blessed with a warning! Did anyone learn from it? Makes me wonder. Chief Inc., you have a very large and loyal customer base that is getting shoved aside regardless of history with the company. I hear about how so many are cutting back to try and save money as the economic slowdown begins to really hurt. Several users here are encouraging the company to ignore them, making noise about how they are not buying SSA and because of that are not supporting the company. It would seem, for some reason, that would be their fault. What is not considered is how so many have gone above and beyond that. Ask them, or even me, how many sales of Chief were due to theirs or my influence and referrals? Many times, I engaged in projects with other builders and developers where the software licenses were covered by a single group entity. Yes, they were upgrades for me, but many were new users and followed my lead. I hosted a CAD group in Colorado where users, first starting out with the home versions, ended up upgrading to full versions due to others and myself encouraging them as they learned and displayed the aptitude and desire to move up. I can see this slowdown being a very good time to cut back, eliminating the frills, and focusing on ways to save during the bad times. Imagine taking a few top programmers and focusing on eliminating so many of the bugs that continually get swept by. Taking a bad situation and making a good one for both Chief and for the users. I am willing to bet this sales direction did not happen easily, it sounds more like scrambling to make it all work out. Thing is, just like the builders I mentioned earlier, any company who focuses more on their user base and how to help them survive the economy will be the company whose user base will still be around as the financial picture improves. Please forgive me my writing tonight. I am tired and cannot see so good in this light, but I wanted to make this one last effort.... Maxie

What's interesting here is how some users are critical of other's complaints and tend to ostracize them for those complaints. Turn it around, the same users are loud and long when the issue has a negative effect in their direction. Between the egos and the pricing change....