dshall

If I am not mistaken, you want the Retaining Wall on footing at one side of foundation and a mono slab footing on the opposite side. This is the reason that I believe the floor plan of the walk out basement should be on level 1 (not level 0). If the walk out basement plan is on level 1, this allows the mono slab foundation to be on level 0. Now define all footings at level 0 to be mono slab footings and the retaining wall is defined as a foundation stem wall. A bit tricky.... probably very difficult to build auto so this is a manual build.

For computing FAR, the stairs are counted twice. Whenever the ceiling height is greater than 15', the area is counted twice with the understanding it is possible to add a floor into that area. Isn't that interesting..... 2 experienced users have different understanding on how to tabulate floor areas. That is the purpose of this thread. I am dealing with a project in Coronado right now and we are trying to get ever s.f. of area we can so it is very important to understand what is floor area. It feels like I am always walking in a field of land mines.... if I do not get things dialed in just right, the next step will blow up the entire project.

BTW, we count stairs twice out here. Basement stairs once. If you consider exterior finishes for FAR, do you include finishes for COVERAGE? rhetorical questions.

This is the latest..... I am adding more floor area to an existing house, if I double the floor area on the project I have to use all electric, no gas ranges, so I need to keep the new floor area under the existing floor area so I can use a gas range. (remember we have a climate crises and if I use this electric range vs gas I will save the world). So how do I figure the new and existing floor areas according to the jurisdiction? Well it is obvious, you measure to the exterior face of existing studs at existing first floor but for the new 2nd floor addition you measure to the interior face of new studs at 2nd floor. (it's obvious..... right?). and then you do not include the new stairwell area at 2nd floor. I kept the new floor area under 100% of existing floor area by 6.387 s.f. My client can have a gas range and the world is saved and I can sleep at night! Ain't life grand?

Yeah, that is what I have always done, but now I am finding some of the cities.... Solana Beach, Coronado, maybe Encinitas are using the exterior finish. This is driving me nuts. I wish Michael would come up with a SUPER MACRO that would adjust the floor area depending on which jurisdiction I am working in. Hey Michael, winter is coming, the snow will be falling, you will be stuck in your house with nothing to do, please work on this, thanks.

FYI.

Hi all, what is the definition floor area...... for minimum setbacks and FAR calculations etc. Do you measure to interior face of stud wall for area (edge of foundation)? Do you measure to exterior face of stud wall for area? Do you included the exterior finish for area? Do you include 2nd floor stairwells? When determining setbacks do you..... Do you dimension to exterior face of stud wall (the foundation) Do you dimension to the exterior face of finish? What about required 1-hour walls? Less that 5' to property line it needs to be one-hour..... but do you measure to the exterior face of finish or to the exterior face of studs? I am relatively new to the business (since 1974) so I am still learning, please help me.....

Got it , thanks......

OOOOPS, now that I have the MOVE icon, how can I get rid of it? Thanks

Thanks Michael, I use a MAC using the MAGIC MOUSE which does not have a middle mouse button... so the hot key is awesome..... It was Brian that put on the productivity tip lecture.... I am glad I list3ened in.

Thanks Steve, I did not think of the roof cuts bottom option and ceiling plane.

That is a great question. Have you done it?

Hmmm, very clever, I will give it a go, thx

What method did you use…. That looks good.

This is the: The remove portion of RAILING FOLLOW STAIR challenge. I have provided pics of what I want to do plus the plan. The first person that accepts and solves the challenge wins absolutely nothing except for my appreciation. Thank You. BBBB remove portion of wall challenge.plan.zip

Thanks for sending that in. I have requested it before. I also talked to the Chief Muckety Mucks at the UGM about this.... specifically Brian. The more folks that request it the sooner it happens. BTW, the UGM was awesome this year, the CA team was awesome, and I learned a lot. It was probably the best UGM I have attended..... maybe because I learned a lot. They said they had 144 folks attending which apparently is a record. I hope to return next year.

Thanks for bringing this up again. I think it would be wonderful if it was VIEW SPECIFIC. Example: in floor plan I would like to show ridge beams as double dash line and in framing plan I would like to show the ridge beam as single dashed line.

X8? when did x8 come out? i started with 10 in 2005…. I think……. Perry, when did we start and what did we start with? Wasn’t it 10 in 2005? jeesh…. Has it been that long?

From what I know there are three methods to figure areas. 1. The CA way: In my opinion the CA way is not good because it is very difficult to cross check the areas...... and very time consuming to define which rooms are what type of rooms..... and then how do you do total areas for FAR, COVERAGE, etc? I just don't get it. 2. The Joe Carrick way.... I do not fully understand it, but Perry likes it and so does Joe.... I guess it works. 3. The Alaskan Son way. Very easy to double check/verify that the areas are correct. His method works great for me..... he charged me, I paid his fee, well worth the money.

Update all views does not work for me... does it work for you? It is very hit and miss for me.,... even after I shut down CA and reopen. Has anybody else experienced this?

yeah.... I know what you are saying.... I just fix it and move on. Very frustrating.

I see the missing text block lines occasionally and sometimes the last letter will go to the next line like the old days (not good).... I say this to confirm your observations.... I am too busy to look into the issue, my bad

Hi Larry, I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I was referring to the floor joists over the garage supporting the 2nd floor.

hmmmm, what would you do if you had an extra long span over the garage and needed to change the floor joists from 16" oc to 12" oc?

I use bearing lines/bearing walls.