dshall

a comment..... Joey does a great looking set of plans.... I have always admired his set of plans, they are so clean looking and not cluttered compared to mine.... however based on my experience, he would never be able to pull a permit in California with them. Just a few examples.... footing widths are not specified and there are no shear transfer details, window headers are not spec'd and hip sizes are not called out and there are not king posts under ridge beams spec'd out. Location of vertical steel in retaining walls is not spec'd...... plate heights in sections are not called out and there are only 2 sections , for a house this size and complex, it seems more than 2 sections will be needed. I suppose the point of the post is, you need to understand what the permitting jurisdiction will require. Simply copying someone's method will not always guarantee a permit. I began drawing plans in Houston back in the '70's and Joey's plans would be considered very nice and adequate........ 40 years later in California..... much more info is required . Energy calcs, structural calcs, truss calcs, BMP plans, Brush Management plans, coverage calcs, FAR calcs, impervious area calcs and keeping the wife happy calcs not to mention plans to assure your kids success in life calcs. Anybody in California with little to no experience who thinks they can provide a set of plans , will be in for a big surprise.

I assume you can select the roof planes you want to change and then change the attributes for all roof planes at one time via the dbx.

Yep, I thought so, this would be a good request for the suggestions forum. I am specifically thinking of when I manually build pitched roof planes and then I need to set up the defaults for a shallow pitched cricket and then I want to switch back to the conventional roof pitched roof plane. Not a must need, but would be nice to have.

I concur.

Doesn't this work? Never tried it, glad you brought it up......

I have SSA so I have paid for the content. My client has SSA so he has paid for the content. I took me a few hours to go through all of the content and download to my computer. I am trying to save my client some time.... if I am able to export my ENTIRE BONUS LIBRARY CONTENT and pass on to my client, it would save him time. If I am able to export my ENTIRE MANUF LIBRARY CONTENT and pass on to my client, it would save him time. It takes an hour or two or more to search all of the libraries and download the libraries..... it seems as if I can export my MANUF and BONUS libraries, and then share with my client, it would save the two of us a lot of time. In fact I have several clients that are not as well versed as I in the machinations of importing libraries. I am trying to keep it quick and easy. So, can I export MY BONUS LIBRARIES and MY MANUF LIBRARIES and pass them on to my clients that have paid for them via SSA?

See pic, I think I can EXPORT my user library and share it with a client. However, I would like to EXPORT THE MANUF. library and EXPORT THE BONUS CATALOG LIBRARY to a client. Can I do this? It would be much easier if I was able to do this otherwise my client needs to go through the time intensive procedure to get the bonus and manuf libraries. So the question is, can I export the bonus and manuf libraries so a client can quickly import the libraries?

got it, thanks.....

This is interesting..... your use of the word "MANUALLY" explains how you were able to do what you did. What you did is essential come back 20 years after the house was built and DEEPEN the crawl space floor and put in some retaining walls inside of the existing perimeter footings. I understand the premise, I am not sure if I would of built it the way you did..... not saying your method is wrong.... but I think I would of built it differently..... you used a "room divider" wall on the inside..... I wonder if that wall could of actually been a wall.......... your method was probably quicker and easier....... hmmmmmmm.... if I were to substitute a wall for your "room divider" wall, I suppose I would of needed to use a PONY WALL with the top half of the wall as some kind of invisible wall ....... I know, I am overthinking...... it sounds like you got it figured out much quicker than I would.....

I think I agree with you. I thought we were talking about building the slab below the footing.

Did you test it out to find out if they did change it? I do not think they changed the way it works. If the point is you can now define the slab as being lower than the stem wall, please show me how you can do it, please post a plan showing the slab lower than the stem wall. And finally why would you want the slab lower than the stem wall footing? I sure wish we could get on the same page in regards to what we are discussing. It's like putting my finger on a piece of mercury, it keeps moving.....

So I was wrong, you did not misspeak, you do want the slab below the bottom of the footing. Correct? If this is so, then I agree you cannot have the slab lower than the footing....... without a work around. But, when would you ever want the slab below the footing?

I disagree with this statement, Here is a vid, a pretty good vid

This is such a great comment on the CA method. The CA method may be confusing, but it could be a lot worse. Great post MichaelGia.

Look at the attached picture. This is probably the clearest example of why the floor above should control the ceiling below. If you want to raise or lower floor 2A, don't you think it is easier to control floor 2A elevation from the floor versus the ceiling below? There are 2 ceiling heights below, so how do you control the height of floor 2A? I doubt I will get it, but I hope someone says "yeah, I get it, the floor should control the ceiling below" BTW, there are other issues with how the structure will frame that bothers me.... but I am trying to keep the example simple to understand.

I am so glad MichaelGia brought this up via the video. I absolutely would prefer that level zero go down or up relative to level 1's 0.0 elevation. If the basement could effect the elevation of level 1 that is typically at 0.0, the *&%$^&% would really hit the fan. Larry, I know I will never convince you that the way they have it set up is probably the best of all the poison's they could choose, but I do know that I do manipulate the floor of basement relative to floor 1 and I certainly would not want that elevation change of the basement to change my level 1 elevation of 0.0. I want level one to always be at 0.0 unless I manipulate it. Thank you MichaelGia for bringing this up and sharing the video.

I watched the video. I am not sure if I agree with everything Dan said. Good tip on resizing a basement. Changing a ceiling height on LEVEL ZERO moves floor down in lieu of moving ceiling above up. However he talked about controlling floor heights via the ceiling below, I think most of us work from top down..... the floor sets the ceiling below, the ceiling below should not be used to set the floor above. I think this has been discussed before. One more observation, he was working with a relatively simple model.... it gets more complicated when the walls from floor to floor do not necessarily line up. All of Dan's walls lined up making the model easier to manipulate. The reason most power users will build from top down is for this very reason...... if walls are not neatly lined up, working from top down is the way to go. IOW, the floor will control height of ceiling below, the ceiling below should not control height of floor above. As Dan would say, "that is the way the program works" I relate to the issue that Richard "The Curmudgeion" had, been there done that, hopefully he was able to work it out. But I do not think locking floors is the answer....... oh boy...... I can imagine the frustration this would bring.... especially when walls do not line up.

Are you guys kidding? Only 500/year an you get the latest version? What's the problem? I love it when my clients go somewhere else to get a "better deal". They always come back. You guys go off and try SP or REVIT or ACAD, you will be back.

I would talk to The Great Glenn Woodward, he knows everything, or post the plan and one of us other peons will probably solve it for you. Joe Carrick will write a macro to fix it, The Alaskan son will write a different macro to solve it, I will do a long and boring video to solve it, Perry will write up a solution but he will misspell every other word, Yusuf will come up with a solution that nobody else thought about, Val will do something, DJP will pontificate and if you can figure out what he is talking about....... My Friend, post the plan and you will have a bunch of nitwits give you a solution, what else do you want? Bottom line, there are a bunch of folks out here that will help free of charge...... free of charge?...... I never said we were the smartest folks around.

wow, 3 answers within one minute...... see if you can get that on Jeopardy.

I put in my own beams but if you want to do it auto, here is how....

I concur, all good guys and they know their stuff. However, Scott Harris has a very good drive off the tee, a good iron game, but on the putting green his game falls apart.

Thank You, but we know who the real heroes are..... Thank You Sir.

For you guys that don't know, David Michael and his Chief Tutor is one of the best learning tools. His vids have always been my favorites to go to. And for any newbies out there, one of the best things you can do is to become a PRIME MEMBER with him.......... Hey David....... do I get a cut of the revenues? But seriously, his stuff is some of the best.

Or put dimensions on same layer as toilet and then they too will show on fndtn plan.