GeneDavis

My neighbor is a realtor working with a developer doing a 12-floor condo building, which has underground parking (ramp complexities), boat slips, the street level all commercial, a level of parking above that, and 8 levels of condo flats above all that. I know Chief can do 12 floors, but is it a stretch with all the ramping for the 3 parking levels? What the have is paper prints and their .pdf files for the whole thing, but the designer that did it all (likely ACAD) is dead, and they need it all recreated live again so ad to be able to revise as needed for clients. Somebody quoted them 1.5 million fee for the work.

My neighbor the real estate developer has a need for an architect/designer with experience in a project like the one at hand. This one has been designed, but for whatever reasons, the original plans developer is not available to do what is needed. It is a waterfront condo thing, twelve stories, two floors of underground parking under grade, retail and restaurants on level 3 at grade, another level above that for more parking, then residence flats from 4 to the top. If you have something of this scale in your portfolio I'd like to connect you with him. He and his partner got a quote for 1.5 million to essentially redraw the plans from the .pdfs that exist now. He thought that was kinda high. They've a registered FL engineer on board so are able to get your work appropriately sealed as required by city of Marco Island. PM me here. Thanks.

I build the frameless cabinets in Chief X13 as "framed," separation default set to 3/4", full overlay amount set to 11/16". Double-door cabs show doors tight. Do I have to fake this with a vertical split to get the 1/8" margin between doors?

Unless the client is totally tuned, spatially, and can imagine each of the options in 3D, why do this in 2D floor plan? I think your need is best served by 3D, and so take the time to show the client how to use the 3D viewer and walk through the spaces. Two plan files, A and B, and each in the Chief 3D Viewer Cloud. If you have already done a B after an A, you are just a few clicks away.

In Chief one does not "draw" elevations. The user "builds" the house in 3D, and the program generates elevation views. "Generates" is the key word. If you have never used a package like this, and have always drawn in 2D, you are going to have to dive into Chief 3D yourself, and experience it. I live in a production-built house, in an area of many gated communities like mine, all of them full of production-built houses from names like Lennar, Pulte, Toll Brothers, Taylor Morrison, and D.R. Horton. Every different model seen in all these communities is or was offered in multiple elevations. From what I have seen, the differences in elevations are always a result of roofs and trim and siding features, plus windows. I have a set of the plans used by the builder for my house, and I know they are a product of 2D AutoCad because I have spoken to the drafting firm that did them. I used them to create a Chief plan of my house. My neighbor, across the street, with same plan as mine but different elevation, is building a garage bay addition from the remodel plan I did for him. It took me less than 30 minutes to change my plan to his plan, a third of the time changing the roof (his has more gables), a third redoing the faux stone cladding to match his, the rest changing some windows and the shutter treatments. From that point, I had an as-built of his, and added the new garage bay. But what I now have is two plan files, each of which generates the elevations unique to the plan. In Chief, you don't "draw" elevations. Chief "generates" them, and all you do is annotate the elevations.

It's Zip-R that you are describing, Joey. Huber's OSB with foamboard glued on and then the air/water membrane on the foam. And it is offered with different foam thicknesses. I do it with one layer.

Our contract was for the tract builder, a big national firm building in many states, to build the home. The roofer (this is a cement tile finish) was a sub. It is that sub that fixed the first incident of leaking. A rep from that roofing outfit that did the job and the fix came out and inspected, and I pointed out the no-cricket condition, which I had not noted before, never having gone on the roof. See the pic, the black roof plane is the 2:12 cricket I modeled into place where there is none now. The roofing rep said that they simply roof what gets built, that to have done a cricket at build-new time would have required the framing sub, ahead of the roof work, to have built the cricket structure. IMHO, the drawings should have called for the cricket, which they did not, and there should have been details to show how to kick the mini-valley's discharge away from the wall at the valley's end. But nothing was shown on the poor set of prints provided. Ours was the first of 24 houses with this condition in this community, 12 of which are still under warranty. I am sorely tempted to raise a ruckus with those 12 at the same time I raise a ruckus with the builder.

My tract house has a roof plane coming to a "dead" valley, a situation any of us knows, if we pay attention, required a cricket. It's in Florida, and the state's code mandates a cricket when the abutting penetration wall length is 30 inches or more. My condition is 56 inches. The house is a year out of warranty, and builder says he bears no responsibility to fix it. He repaired a leak in the area when the house was approaching the end of its 2 year warranty. The leak is back. The builder says too bad. The county's building department says it is not their responsibility to catch this in plans review. They say if the plan comes to them, as all plans must do, bearing the seal of the state-licensed pro, the signoff means the design meets code in every respect. So the building department sends me to the firm who designed the house, saying it's their fault. And they send me to an independent engineer, the guy with the license and stamp, and the designers say it's his job to catch it. The engineer won't return my call, but I just left the message earlier today. I said nothing about code or a problem in my message, only that I needed some information only he would have, for a plan he reviewed and signed. How would this go in the jurisdictions in which you work?

Does it miter the 90 degree ones? Some might call that a miter.

OK, I did a search and found nothing, but others have suggested being able to hinge a door horizontally on a cabinet, which means in Chieftalk, a door that can have the appropriate opening indicators, and even can be shown in the open and part-opened position. Not there in Chief but it's been asked for. Maybe in 14, who knows. One can hope. So for a single, use a door, I know you gotta term it RH or LH, but control the display in the door spec dialog so the opening indicator does not display. Then use CAD to draw the indicator of your choice, an arrow to indicate one that rotates out and then goes vertically up, or a regular "V" dashed line to indicate horizontal hinging. For a hinged Aventos-hardware bifold, use drawerfronts as you already observed and tried, and draw the indicators how you want them to look.

I asked about this recently and got a response from Mark, the King of Cabinets. Do a search for Blum Aventos.

Add a hotkey for the tape.

Joey, my point should have been made more clearly. I was talking about fractional dimensions for ROs. Rob seemed to want something that told the framer just from the label how to size the RO. The size chart of standard sizes for Andersen 400 doublehungs has ROs all at fractionals and they are eighths. ThermaTru RO widths are all fractional. No whole inch numbers.

You want your label to be the R.O.? Those window companies that size their units in fractions (I'm looking at you, Andersen!) will cause you some long labels. The door companies also (and I'm looking at you, ThermaTru!). And I was ThermaTru's VP Eng way back when.

If I know whose windows are going to be used, I put downloaded size charts right in the plan file all in one CAD detail, for ready reference. If the product line is new to me, I study the tech docs to understand the mulling standards, so I can place and size multiples when necessary. Wherever possible, I'll use their standard sizes, and use the comments field to show the callout labels. My RO specs are simple: 1/2" all around. Dimensions are to centerlines. If the window buy is undecided, I go with sizes that are always in whole inches, and chosen to be close to the "average" I see in the catalogs. In my market, four or five makers make up the usual field of choice. No callouts go in comments. So what's the builder's window salesman gonna do? And what's the framer gonna do? I'm not the one that let the supply question go undecided all the way through permit issuance and maybe even foundation build. They'll do it the old fashioned way, mark up the prints with sizes and RO info, and carry on. So so what's the problem?

Here are screenshots from a couple of widely-distributed window companies (Andersen and Pella), showing size charts for their double hung and casement windows. Pella doesn't even detail glass size (which I believe Andersen is calling "clear vision" size) in their tables. Pella callout numbers for their standards seem to relate directly to unit (i.e., "frame") size. Andersen still uses their somewhat unique and archaic callouts, which for double-hung windows might be more akin to SASH sizes, not "clear area glass," and it is only for the double hung windows. Their callouts for casement don't relate to sash or glass sizings at all. What is your issue, exactly? Chief gives us the ability in windows to define sash widths, which relate to glass area. Is that what you want? A way to have the window label done in glass size, computed from what we spec for size and sash widths? Or do you simply want to use Andersen windows in their standard sizes, and have Chief produce labels that match their callouts? What if your drawings are used and the client buys JeldWen, or Marvin, or Lincoln, or some other brand?

Ryan said, and explained how, "You can manually renumber it back to how you had it before." Why would you not do this?

The built-up frieze is a 3D molding, made with a crown and a piece of 5/4. Do your barges with something like this.

Does the city reject your plot plan if the exterior walls are shown as Joey shows? Do they have a written requirement? Will they reject your plans if the plot plan shows roofs with ridges, hips, and valleys?

There were 6 different curves in this roof plan with flared edges. I worked them all out (the geometry) in CAD before setting out to do the roof builds. Always, the uphill angle must match the upper pitch, to ensure tangency. Right out the window from me, the house next door has flared eaves, and the framer (or architect) ignored tangency. The break is not pleasing, to my eye.

But don't we want actual routed bullseye rosettes? A block ain't one. I thought Chief had a symbol for one in some bonus library full of millwork.

Change the sun angle to minimize it, if shadows is a must for you. I only shadow the front elevation. The white CAD mask with fat line diagonal fill thing's been here since the stone age.

Don't need no cricket. No, suh! Just break the shed roof eave edge right above the gable roof edge below, and drag the top ("ridge") corner straight over to the valley. BTW, that arrangement is kind of a mess. Is this an addition, a remodel?

You can do a curved roof section (I hate to call it a "plane,") but a not-curved one is a plain plane. Planar means plane. It can pitch any way you want, but you cannot "warp" a roof section in Chief. When doing crickets, use the roof tool to create a new small plane ON TOP of the roof where you need the cricket. Work in 3D and open the new little plane you drew to get its baseline elevation. Do this where needed to determine the cricket's elevation numbers, baseline and ridge, or in cricket-speak, low point and high point. Maybe someone can link to a tutorial video doing crickets.

As can be seen in both Eric and Chopsaw's images, the gable width has to equal the depth of the main roof for this (or any) cross-gabled roof if pitches are all to match. Now, if you want a cross gable that's less width than that, your valleys will be "irregular," and framers use a vulgar term for this, but the pitches will need to be calculated. Your framed image looks like you may want to go this way. As an example, I modeled a shape in 3D using my go-to Sketchup app, doing a 28' deep house with a 24' width cross gable. Same 16-7 as yours for the gambrel pitches. For the valleys to be linear when seen in plan view, the pitches for the cross need to be 16-1/2" and 8-3/16".