GeneDavis

I have hinged doors and pocket doors in a plan that cut the base, but the bifolds don't. Modern no-trim scheme, casings all unchecked. And the bifold is the only interior door type that came in with the sill/threshold checked which when I unchecked, that's when the base molding scooted across. So what's up with bifolds? Edit: Let me correct the statement above. The hinged and pocket also have sill threshold checked, but there is nothing there in them, no sill threshold visible in 3D. But look at this chunky thing under a bifold when you check it (and this makes the door cut the base.) What's up?

I've done it making two roofs: The gable overhang has open soffits, the one starting at the building line does. Not pretty in plan view, but does the trick in 3D.

I am fortunate to work in a small market where most trusses come from the same source, and that source has a truss engineer I can count on to look at my preliminaries and come back quickly with a layout and details, meaning a plan view with dimensions, and all the truss detail sheets. I pay attention to transport size, which can affect scissors trusses, and he tells me what is possible so I then bake it into the arrangement of walls and vaulted ceilings and pitches and heights. Sometimes we'll go to three rounds of revisions before he and I match and I am happy. Most times less than three. My goal is to be able to have a roof framing plan with trusses to match the layout the job will get at build time. Most jobs are hybrid in some way, meaning part of the roof gets stickframed, and I want to see and control how it all goes together. I don't pay attention to how the trusses are webbed, that's Mitek's job. I do, however, sometimes need to specify tail size if we are going to get exposed rafters, and he always accommodates me. They can place a 2x6 top chord end on a truss that is otherwise all 2x4, bringing the joint inboard to a node in an appropriate location. The software he uses does not generate detail for hip-roof lay-ons, the truss-built elements (flat 2x3 sort of like a gable end) that lay on hipped roof stepdowns above the girder below. I always want the vertical web parts to align to the monotrusses below, hung on the girder, so I do CAD details for those and he can use the Mitek or whatever it is to generate a custom truss so everything comes out perfectly. I used to build, and loved the part of framing when we did complex roofs. Watch one of my favorite YouTube framers doing a hipped roof fill job. No lay-ons for him! Note the cordless saw and no-hose nail gun, with hooks for hanging them on the framing while he measures or marks or catches parts thrown up by the guy on the floor below. I have been both those guys. I love doing trussed arrangements in Chief. This image is of one (done back in X5) when I was that guy, in the trusses and on the floor. The detail pages for the job, one truss per sheet, was over 75 pages. When it was time to sheath the roof, done in 5/8 OSB, I was the ground guy and handed up all 212 sheets, most full, a lot cut.

I am a long time SU user, and my opinion is it cannot be done as any kind of direct-to-3D op. SU's 3D elements have no parametric building "smarts" like Chief's have, so Chief cannot translate what SU parts are and make roof planes, wall elements, windows, doors, etc. What I would do is go into SU, use the section plane tool, and do horizontal sections at the right height for each floor to get all possible doors and windows (60 inches off floor works OK), change camera to parallel projection, take a top view, do a screen cap, and then do that for each floor, basement, 1, 2, etc. In a new Chief file, bring in the jpegs onto floors 0, 1, etc. and resize as needed to get as close to right scale as possible, then trace walls and place opening elements. You will still have to do all the structure build stuff . . . floor levels, etc. You will have to either auto-roof it or manually roof it. I took an old SU house model I have and imported it every way possible into Chief, but all I got was a dumb fixture.

I don't mean Chief won't do it. What I mean is it cannot do what I want. Is this correct? Flight 1 goes to the landing with its railing as an open balustrade, wall under, on its L. The treads and skirt overhang the under-wall, and the railing resolves into the wall end above. Make a U-turn at the landing, and proceed up flight 2, same style open balustrade railing on R, this one beginning with a newel at the landing, and the railing resolving into a newel at the top railing. And I want the flight 1 newel, the bottom newel, on the first tread top, not on the floor. One of photos, attached, has this config. It has been a while since I did one of these, and I recall having to do workarounds creating millwork in Sketchup and importing the symbols in and placing things. The attached pics are photos snipped from Houzz of what I am after, railing-wise, and one of the staircase as I have it initially placed and specified. Plan file attached, also. We all know Chief needs some work to be able to do the stairs we want. Can this be done or am I off to the boards creating millwork? Step down to the view.plan

Thanks, everybody! I am marking this solved.

Ordinary sliding glass door. Shouldn't one with fixed panel right be numbered differently than one with fixed panel left? They are both given schedule callout W01 in my window schedule. The window salesmen is attentive and professional and quotes one W01 left and one W01 right. There is a 50 percent chance the builder will install them wrong, no matter how I annotate the drawings. I'll bet on wrong. How can I control this so they get separate callouts?

Build a 12 x 12 room, 8 foot ceiling height, draw a cabinet and place it at center, center a recessed light over it, and experiment. Try different offsets like 2, 3, and 4 inches away for the source, start low at maybe 30 lumens, set the beam spread angle at 120 or 150, no shadows, and the drop off at maybe 50, and then dial down spread, then drop off a little, then up lumens, until you think you have something you like. Most importantly, observe in your own living spaces that have recessed lights, what is happening with the light. Take a notepad or a clipboard with a white sheet on it, and move it around at various distances to see what your eyes discern in brightness. The typical LED spot you buy at Depot or Lowes has a big beamspread even though it is called a spot. And a sloppy (by that I mean big number) fall off rate. I need to add the undercab LED strips in this tiny kitchen, but the ceiling cans in the pic have settings you might try.

I've not found a way, so I put the short side height in the comments column. I have quotes from Pella and Andersen for a job that includes traps, and their quote format shows size as W x H, the H being the tall side. Andersen shows elevation views of the windows with dimensions, and the short side height matches my spec. Pella does the same. It would probably be best for Chief to give us an option to show these dimensions in the elevation view option they give us for schedules, to match how the window companies do it.

That's a sweet solution, Mr V!

There was only one curved roof in your plan, and I edited it. Opened top roof for spec dialog, changed pitch to read in degrees, copied pitch. Opened curved roof segment, locked fascia height, pasted saved high pitch into pitch at ridge, and now she's tangent. Did a roof rejoin just to check. Curved roof planes coming together at a valley or a hip, if equal radii, will have a join line that is straight in plan view, of course. If unequal radii, you get snakes.

What front window? Does this house (are you doing an as-built?) have the flare around its entire perimeter, like for example that return roof above the garage doors? It can get really complicated, taking a lot of time, particularly when the straight-pitched upper roofs have different pitches at different parts of the building. This one had six different conditions, and a couple valleys that curved like snakes. And a crownmold and frieze at the gables, which curves.

Getting it "right," for me, always means the curved roof at the eave has a curve tangent to the roof it joins at its "ridge" or top end. Yours does not. Your upper roof is somewhere around 61 degrees pitch and your curve tops out at somewhere in the middle 50s. I did not write down their specifics, but that is from a minute-ago look. For the ones I do, there is always a 2D study done in CAD. You have your upper pitch located as to pitch and its Z height, your overhang, and you go from there. Draw a circle to see how its curve looks.

Thanks, Robert! That did it.

I needed one and always make sure if making a symbol, that it is a true-scale and true-detailed one that can be sourced for real. Doing kitchens for small houses, tiny houses, or ADUs, where space is tight, requires scaled-down appliances. Here is a Blomberg 24" bottom-freezer fridge. Some of their products (like their 24 inch ranges) have 3D files you can download from them to use as symbols, but this fridge was not that way. I have their 30 inch top freezer model which uses the same door shape and handles, so I was able to model this one pretty close using info in their spec sheet. Can you use one of these? It is counter depth and goes into a 24 x 70 hole. Here ya go. Just what you needed. A fridge symbol to blow up your plan file size. Blomberg 24 inch bottom freezer fridge.plan

Thanks, Robert. I have never ever wasted the time on dormer cheeks in a Chief plan I have on this one, and it is still not right. The upstairs bathroom cheek wall is kicking my butt. The other two are done. Not quite right, but done. Glen Road stripped.zip

Plan attached. The whole thing about roof cutting wall and pony walls and attic walls is a mystery to me when it comes to this arrangement. I have tried for hours to get this cleaned up, but cannot. It is 2x6 with siding above the roofs, 2x4 sheetrock below. What's so hard about that? The inside faces of the above and below wall are supposed to align, of course. And then there is the wall corner bite. What's that about? Glen Road Top End.plan

How would I make such a material? I would need an image, a material, a full 48 x 96 sheet of veneer, a black 3/16" strip across the top and one side, total size 48 3/16 x 96 3/16. And tile-able, meaning the grain at the bottom of a sheet is a match to that at the top, so that a stack of sheets going up the "wall" looks like continuous grain as you go from bottom to top across sheet joints. If I could not make it that way, and the perfectionist in me makes me want that kind of realism for this job, I'd do it as a color and not woodgrained. But how would I make such a material, even this simpler way, so I could get true-scale tiling?

I'd like to be able to model this in Chief. The "walls" that are the roof interior finish, are done with an architectural panel system hung with z-clips and snap-clips and precision set with reveals. The material is 1/2-inch phenolic sheet with a woodgrain laminate. None of the vertical walls in the project are hung with the panels, only the pitched roof undersides. Sure wish Chief would let us do material regions on roof undersides. What would you do to get this look in 3D with Chief?

What Michael said. And remember, Chief's fascia has its top outside corner (top of fascia) aligned with the top face of sheathing. That point, that corner tip, is not colinear with the point that is the baseline height, or the point that is the ridge height. Those two are at top of framing. Math will deliver you the number for your 12 pitch as it relates to 4 pitch, with roofs having same fascia height and fascia thickness. For 3/4 fascia, Chief delivers the math result, and the heel height difference is not 12 inches, but 11.8133704333". No bug. Real trig. I always dimension plans to show overhang to tip of fascia, and let the truss engineers and framers do the math for how to build.

Well you know what that means, right? Get that plan file up here and let's all have a look.

Roof plane spec dialog > Structure > Roof: Trim framing to soffits

That's an interesting way of doing the solid that is the hump. Could the curve be the distribution path for the rafter tails? All this guy's work has barenaked soffits with rafters exposed.

Edit your column widths right on the schedule.

Thanks, Eric. See my Suggestion, posted today. These warped-roof versions of which I speak have no bell-shaped valleys around the eyebrow. All the rafters have their top ends up either at a common "ridge" elevation, or are tied to hips. Each rafter is pitched differently, unlike what we get using the Chief curved roof tools and doing the joins.