HumbleChief

The first example could certainly be done completely in Chief. There would have to be a couple custom filled shapes for the trees, resized and filled with various colors to represent various plantings. The 2D tree and plant shapes included in Chief's library will work perfectly for this. The rest of the shapes are simple filled CAD shapes and if the model is already done in Chief, each road, side walk and building area can be filled to match the example almost exactly. The text notations are of course a no brainer for Chief's tools. Do you already have a model that needs a landscape plan? Perhaps you could post that or send it to me and see what can be done...

Yeah there's a guy named Bob who's really good....

Curious as to why you would use concrete for your walls - at all. You have access to it? What does that mean exactly and I only ask because we all have access to concrete? Do you like the look? Do you like the idea in general? If you like the look then it will be hard to get that look both inside and out with out a third insulating wall type between concrete pours and as you know the insulation values of concrete are low at best and in the North East that has to be factor no? We built a poured in place concrete structure here in San Diego but the insulation needs are very low coastal and high inland where we could not build the same structure because of the high AC needs in the summer. ICF could be a great option but it will look nothing like 'concrete' when your finishes are applied but you will get some decent R values - and get to use concrete. Still curious about the desire to use concrete? And really just that - curious.

Thanks Mick, old dog new tricks and all that stuff but looks likes a good way to organize wall types. I personally have a very difficult time incorporating some of Chief's features in to a work flow I've used for so many years. It's just faster but most of all easier to remember the old tried and true methods - for me.

I've chased those lines for many, many years with Chief. Sometimes they are very easy to resolve with aligning floors, matching materials etc.. Other times nothing helps and I've learned to live with them.

Yeah I just can't find the time or energy to stay that organized. I use stucco about 90%+ of the time here and recreating wall types actually saves me time because I would have no idea where to find the different walls, even though as you say it's easy and probably smart - maybe smarter than I?

My whole list is very basic with 'existing' 'new' interior and exterior basics that I will change per plan instead of cataloging each different wall type for future plans. For example I have a 'New Stucco' wall type with 7/8" stucco exterior and 1/2" drywall interior and 3 1/2" studs. We just did an as built with some narrow siding and true 4" exterior walls with 1" plaster walls. I simply renamed the Stucco wall type to Siding Plaster 4" for that single plan, changed the layers ( takes only 3 - 4 minutes as you know) and it's good to go for that plan, instead of adding an entirely new wall type to my already too long selection of wall types. If I ever need that wall type again I'll recreate it, again, instead of adding to my wall type list. I started to keep all my new wall types as new walls but got way too cluttered way too fast.

Yeah I was once a contractor myself and would have taken that hit all day every day but business relationships are always more complex than the simple view we get on the forum looking from the outside in. I would not fault anyone for working out a compromise even though the facts (as we know them) seem pretty straight forward. I would also be inclined to try and make sure the contractor I worked for never made that same mistake and tried to pass their responsibility off again. The OP has been in business for a long time and will certainly work things out.

Yeah it's always an easy call from here without all the details and leaving something on the table for the next time is always good business. Let us know how you resolve it if it's not too personal.

Here's the disclaimer on the first sheet of plans which looks like it would cover fabricating trusses as being the contractor's responsibility. I am never quite convinced these kinds of disclaimers have any real legal weight but its presence should at least stop any argument one might have if the contractor orders the wrong trusses. "CONTRACTOR SHALL VERIFY ALL CONDITIONS AND DIMENSIONS AT THE JOB SITE AND NOTIFY THE DESIGNER OF ANY DIMENSIONAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS OR DISCREPANCIES BEFORE BEGINNING OR FABRICATING ANY WORK. THESE CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT EACH AND EVERY DETAIL OR CONDITION THAT MAY OCCUR DURING CONSTRUCTION. THE DESIGNER AND OWNER SHALL RELY ON THE GENERAL CONTRACTOR AND SUBCONTRACTORS FOR THE PROPER INSTALLATION OF MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS IN ACCORDANCE WITH INDUSTRY STANDARDS, MANUFACTURES RECOMMENDATIONS AND ICC/ESR APPROVALS ETC."

Curious, were the plans issued from the city without corrected gable truss calcs? May not be relevant but I've had to change truss calcs to match roof changes more than once before permits would be issued. Either way you provided the contractor with a correct set of plans and at that point your job is finished. Any material of any kind that gets ordered after the correct plan permits are issued would not, IMO, be your responsibility. I've also had truss companies that will not proceed without a job walk to measure exact as built framing before ordering trusses for manufacture. I also have a disclaimer on the first sheet of my plans but not sure if it specifically covers trusses - but it will after I finish typing this post.

This is a very simple problem to solve, sitting on the outside of the relationship like all of the rest of us are and Richard's advice is the only real way to solve the current misunderstanding and prevent this from happening in the future. Sitting in your shoes however it might require a little more concrete allegiance to your relationship, what you agreed to do, or best of all your agreement/contract and what it specifically states. If your contract (assuming you have one which is another must have item in your business life) doesn't state that you don't do structural stuff then why wouldn't a client try and get you to do it or expect that it's included? If it does, then you simply refer to your agreement and there's no real argument. If your client still insists on you creating those foundation docs then that's another part of a business person's life which is qualifying your clients and then knowing which ones to let go and which ones to keep.

Thanks for your kind attention Jason.

Can't figure this out either. You can always drag the walls down in 3D but I don't know why those walls will not build the siding down to the top of the foundation.

You can draw a manual roof plane where you want it and adjust slope/height to taste unless I'm missing something...

As I've said I do think that this issue is unique, in the harm it can cause.

This is clearly a case of a simple misunderstanding when writing and reading forum posts and simple differing opinions. I would bet we'd agree on all of our intentions in a simple conversation so let's not let posts here pollute both of our intent to be helpful. Maybe I posted the wrong words? In the wrong order? You disagree? Fine. The entire thread is about a problem that can 'catch a person out' in a harmful manner. Not about harmless nuisance bugs. If one person is cost time and money because of unexpected behavior or bug then I'm saying that should be changed post haste - as soon as headquarters knows that it can cause harm - no matter how many other people report it. Is that an unreasonable position to take? Maybe, but I think as soon as something is discovered that can cause genuine harm it should be fixed ASAP, and put at the very top of the priority list. We can differ on that of course and it's just my opinion but I know how I would react, and how I do react, on a day to day basis when I discover something that needs changing right now no matter if someone says something or not. Maybe it should take a lot of people getting harmed before anything is done? Again another opinion - I disagree - but it's valid none the less and obviously a position Chief has taken. We all know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I genuinely got caught out not knowing about Chief's behavior and it genuinely cost me time and money. It took a while to even understand that a program would load an older version of a file instead of the updated one. It never even occurred to me that this could happen. Again, I'm not the brightest bulb but learning about it really surprised me. Haven't been caught out since but even today I have to remember Chief's unique behavior in this regard and my assistant and I are always reminding each other to double check. If some users are OK with that behavior then not much I can do, but I personally am not OK with it. I've told headquarters and relayed my story but there's a little bit of a disconnect at Chief in that the tech support people have no power to prioritize changes, only report them. They are kind and understanding but a lot of the concerns i.e. bugs etc. may not get to those who do have the power to prioritize such things in a way that will cause timely change. I still love Chief and that will not change but I just think they can do better. I personally don't 'insist' that a saved PDF be saved with the same name it's just a habit I'm in to keep my file list clean and uncluttered. I simply don't want 3 or 4 similar files with different names.

Huh? Not sure what thread you are actually reading but was there a post somewhere in this thread that suggested everything is (or should) always the highest priority? And why would you quote the post you did and then respond as if there were a suggestion that someone suggested that everything is always the highest priority? I suggested specifically that if there are behaviors that catch someone out, and cost time and effort that those should be given priority so you can't be referring to the post you quoted but sometimes we all read what we want and I think you might have read in something that was never implied or suggested. Or least quote something or someone that is relevant to your response as a common courtesy. I went back and added a descriptor to the previous post but I thought I was talking about a behavior that caused harm and not just any and every bug should be highest priority. Ah never mind... Thanks

It only has to catch one person out one time to be an important behavior that should be changed. Don't call it a bug, make up any name you choose, and by all means don't wait until enough people note it because most users will not report bugs - or any other unexpected behavior but once (EDIT: a bug is discovered that causes some harm to the user) it seems it should be of the highest priority.

All great sentiments and there is a certain responsibility that rests on the user and a certain responsibility that rests on the software developers. If you report a bug, which is part of our responsibility as users, that responsibility ends with that report. The responsibility of the developers takes over and the bug should be prioritized, addressed and fixed. Now as the dev. do you wait and see how many people complain about a bug and move it up the priority list accordingly? I certainly hope not. That would require more responsibility on the user than is warranted IMO and relieves the devs of theirs. "Oh that doesn't seem to worry our users, let's not fix it." That's a horrible measure of the effect of a bug on a user base. If a bug simply goes unfixed for a long period of time it demotivates the user base to even report bugs. Why should we? If they are ignored for years and not fixed? Not enough people reported the bug? Really? Not saying Chief thinks this way and I hope not. This specific behavior of Chief, to me, is very out of the ordinary and can cause genuine harm and costs in time and effort. Is it a bug? I personally don't care what it's called. The behavior is intended and is part of the internal design of how Chief works as it caches files etc. to speed the program but that intended behavior was never OK for many users until they understand how Chief behaves, which is different than any other software I've ever used. Any user can feel free to report bugs as long as they'd like. Personally I'm done. I've used Chief for about 20 years, absolutely love the program, and I know who the company is. Not from speculation. or a bias from inexperience but from a long long time of demonstrable behavior. Chief talks a great game of customer service etc. but many times do not deliver on that talk. Again great people, but the execution of the promises can be a bit lacking and sometimes just down right poor despite customer feedback.

This is all about the personnel at Chief. All great people, I have met them, but someone is making these decisions to ignore reported and demonstrable bugs along with constant requests on this forum to report them. Why would we? Why should we?

I rarely take the time any more because some just sit there unresolved - for many years.

That's a great tip and just simplified my plan views. Thanks

Robert did you add lights? Or just use the recessed cans? I can never get them to look OK by themselves.

Thanks David, Saved in my template files.