Leadcarpo

Hello, I am a draftsman for a Remodeling company in KCMO, and I also do our preliminary estimating. In Chief, I have built out an estimating library and thought I was cooking with gas! I put all of those items on a copied version of their original layers, and the material list would read it. I did it like this, because I wanted to be able to turn those items off in our actual floorplans that we present and send to the field. Basically we want to do everything in one plan and not have to go back and delete a bunch of objects. I have also discovered the power of plan views and have a bunch set up for estimating. Something I have had an issue with in regard to the estimating items, is that sometimes the material list won't read them and it is blank, am I missing something? Is there some layer conflict that I am not seeing? I think this will really help me with speed and accuracy with my estimating, so I really want it to work, thanks in advance!

Hello, I am curious if a macro can be used in an elevation camera and layout callout, to specify the room name and cardinal direction. The hope is that this will automatically name the camera and put the name on the callout. I have been able to get the label to generate on the callout when I name the camera, but I am just trying to stream line anything I can, example below, thanks in advance! Kitchen - North Wall

Hello, I am doing some cabinet elevations, and I was wondering if there is a way to remove cabinet details from side wall cabinets, but still keep one in there to show the detail on the side of that cabinet

Thank you!

Hi, I am trying to clean up my room types, but when I try to delete one, it says that it is used in the Rooms schedule and can't be deleted. Any advice<thanks!

Thanks for the quick responses. We are a remodeling company, and we only use the ceiling marker and it is labeled like this CEILING:~ 8' 1". We have been putting all of this info in manually on every elevation page and we do elevations of every wall in every room we are touching. I am mainly looking for things that we can use to minimize those time suck processes. For instance, I just discovered yesterday that we can use # in our page description label to auto update the page label in our layouts. Up to this point, we have had to make all those page updates manually. Now I am trying to figure out how to make our two scale callouts update automatically when we set the scale of the item on that page. Anyways, figuring this stuff out is really cool and it really shows me just how powerful the software is!

Thanks, that worked for the auto story pole! Is there a way to adjust it in manual elevation markers?

Hello, As I get more and more into using macros in Chief, I get really excited and really frustrated at the same time. I have recently discovered that elevation markers can be set up to report heights automatically, however, we would like the finish floor to be our 0'-0" number, but it only shows that for the top of subfloor. The only thing that I have been able to adjust is the finish floor height in the room dialog page, but I can't seem to find a way to make it a default so it is set for every plan, moving forward. I don't feel like this is the proper approach and my hope is that I am missing something easy. I also played around with some macros, but couldn't create the proper sequence, any help is appreciated, thanks in advance. Also, I am just a dumb carpenter that happens to love Chief Architect, so I am not the most techy person around, lol.

Hello, as I get more and more into creating library objects, material copies, etc. for my pricing, I have noticed that it takes some remembering and time to export my library from work, so I can use it at home and home to work. Is there an easier/more automated way to do this? Is there a cloud sink that I am missing? I would love to make new library entries at one location and have it automatically update at the other. Thanks.

Hello, I am trying to build pricing into anything I can and I have a couple of questions. 1. Is there a way to make components be wall specific? I would like to make multiple walls that each have their own components, one wall might have base install labor and another wall might have a different kind of labor 2. Is there a way to make wall components calculate area. Right now, I have created 0 thickness paint layers to calculate SF for paint labor. The issue I am having with this setup, is that if I put formulas in and change the id from wallboard to accessories, and then make edits to another wall, the defaults change back. It would be great if walls were not changed globally.

I'm curious if anyone knows if there is a way to manipulate walls, independently from each other? I have discovered that the walls seem to work globally, when I place a component for one wall type, it automatically puts the component in all of the walls. I know that I can place the wall, and then turn the components off for that individual wall, but it would be nice to not have to do that.

Hi Rene, First let me say, you are a bad ass for sure. I started following you a few months back and you made me realize that I am barely scratching the surface with chief. I am pushing for my boss to pay for some sessions with you, so fingers crossed. I have been able to make the technique you just shared work, but where I have had a bit of trouble is when I try to make another wall with one or two tweaks. Example, I'll build out the accessories in the component area and call it siding-6, then when I made one called shower wall with a few changes. I would then break the original wall and highlight the section I wanted to change, then, I would go into the wall dialog and choose the shower wall so that section would have those attributes. Then, when I pulled the material list, it did not repot correctly, so I opened the original wall dialog up and it had taken on the attributes of the shower wall. It seemed to happen when I made the copy and changed the components. I am sure it is operator error, so I will dive back in this weekend. One thing I can't figure out is how to get the accessories to compute wall sf for things like paint labor, or siding labor, which is why I tried the material layers. I am not trying to get free help, but can I put a formula in the count line of an accessory to compute sf? Thanks for your advice and hopefully I will be meeting you soon via Zoom!

Thanks for the advice. I actually started out doing it like this, but the wall was acting the same way. If I made a copy, it got rid of the components and the associated pricing, which is why I tried it this way. The way I thought Chief worked, was you made a wall and nothing changed on it unless someone actually changed it, is that not the case? In theory, shouldn't I be able to make as many walls as I want?

Hi, My name is Matt Clark and I am the Project Developer/Estimator for a Remodeling company in KCMO. I have started to try to build different labor types and costs into the wall dialog. I have been selecting colors and making the thickness 0 so that it doesn't affect the wall thickness. I have also tried adding accessories. The issue I am running into, is that when I make a copy of a wall, or replace a wall in the plan, I lose the stuff that I have inputted in the components section (formulas and pricing and ID). Is there a better to do this? I have changed the paint layers used to report as linear and it gave me 7,800 ft for a 5 ft wall, so I figured out a formula that gets me very close to the real number. Like I said, it works great until I copy or change a wall and then it changes the formulas, zeros out the cost and gets rid of the formula. I am using X15.

Thanks for all of the advice. It was happening because I had checked the framing box in the definition area, thinking I needed to, to use my defaults. It must have sent the wrong message, lol.