I'm using a very old edition of Chief Architect (X1 from 2007). After starting to suspect some dimension problems, I drew a plan 100' x 50' containing no interior dividing walls. Outer walls are 1' thick. Since wall dimensions are defaulted to surfaces, I expected Living Area to show as 5000 sq. ft. However, it shows 5163 sq. ft. Don't know whether there's a setting I may have somehow overlooked, there's a bug in the program or it just aged out of reliability.
Thanks for your ideas for a possible solution.