tommy1

Thanks. That worked. Apparently sometimes I do that and sometimes not.

We made a material change on the roofs in one plan and when I select the roof and try to change the material for the ridge cap, most of the time I can use the keyboard to hit the first letter and it takes me to the textures starting with that letter. Well, it doesn't do that. I have to scroll down to find the texture. Many times I can do this and it works. I don't know why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Anyone notice this?

I think I do what Scott does. I draw a cad line. I don't worry about setting an additional angle in the "allowed angles". I just make the line I drew perpendicular to the wall and it works just fine. Now having the "on object" snap turned on, I can make the camera view and it will follow the line. Works perfect every time for me.

The main advantage you have from using a dwg is that you can import it, place it on its own layer and lock that layer (not blocking). Now you can trace over that dwg and Chief will follow the AutoCAD lines exactly without dimensioning. You can control how Chief traces the lines by using your "AltQ" or wall defaults. You still have to place everything else like windows and doors but you can place the over the ACAD items. It does save a little time. You could also import an image, size it and trace too. You do need elevations to show you the plate heights for roofs and see how the roofs are done, window heights. etc.. Good to know the ceiling heights in case they are not the same as the roof plate heights. As you can see, not everyone agrees with me. That's okay.

Greg, call or email me (email in my signature below) if you would like for me to show you your options on how to do this online. Free one on one help.

BTW, since I don't do basements here, and therefore really don't have knowledge about them in Chief, I don't know if changing the floor structure would make a difference for a basement (ceiling height and basement floor).

This is one of two best tips for me this year.

It works with a balcony too. just tried it. A 3 story house with a balcony on the second floor.

It still works even using kitchens and baths on different floors. Just tried it. Not sure about "decks" since decks have its own separate framing.

Scott, I finally got it to work. The problem was in my profile plan. For some reason, the 1st floor default dbx did not have the floor structure box checked for default. Once checked, it works as you describe. I fixed the profile plan and now it works consistently. By not having that box checked, whenever you create a new floor, it will always use Chief's default setting and will not change when you do as you describe. Took me a little bit to figure out the problem.

Scott, I did a basic 3 story building and AFTER it was built, I followed Michael's way and it didn't work for me. Maybe I didn't do something right but.... I still think you need ot change each floor (after it's built). Watch the stairs as well as the ceiling.

Scott, I believe if you want to change the default floor system, then go ahead and change it in the floor default. Then you have to go to each floor (I start at the top) and check the default setting. It will not do it automatically. Once you change the floor system, you need to watch the ceiling heights as well.

You could also make a .dwg file in the 2000, 2001 format and they can probably open it an trace it.

I use wall hatching too to show demo walls in the existing plan. I use the hatch tool to show existing walls in the proposed plan. This is just how I do it. We only do mono slabs or pier & beam foundations here. Our main work is remodels. For mono slabs, I always do it manually using with cad (except for the main slab for 3D & elevations...I use a manual slab). In order for me to get how the foundation plan looks and to satisfy the engineer and planning department, cad for me is much easier and faster along with callouts for the foundation details showing how they look with steel and how an existing slab meets a new slab, flatwork, etc..

I sent you an email at your regular email (not private message). It would be nice to have your tel. # so we can connect.

Dale, if you like, give me a call or email me at my email below and I'll show you some easy ways to do this via an online meeting.

I always do a back-clip elevation and tile the views so I can watch what what's happening as I make the changes.

I will no longer be using gotomeeting. I will now be using Team viewer. I will send links like gotomeeting and it will make you download something for Team Viewer just like gotomeeting did. It takes about 2 minutes or less to download the program. Team viewer will be just as good as gotomeeting. This will enable me to have the same amount of people join in so hopefully there will be no problems. We will have an online meeting Saturday, Aug 10. from 1:00pm to 3:00pm (Central time). Please email me at my email address below in my signature if you would like to join. Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions. One thing I plan to go over is how to do a roof return manually where a hip roof meets a gable roof on the side of a house. How to show an attic siding wall show when using a brick wall below and have the siding attic gable wall moved down to the bottom of the hip roof overhang. There is a little secret to do this.

Steve, this is an excellent question and there is something you should realize. If you send me an email and I'll let you know what I'm talking about. I have gone over this before at our user group.

We will have an online meeting Monday, Aug 3rd. from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Central time). Please email me at my email address below in my signature if you would like to join. Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions. NOTE: I'm now limited to how many people I can have and will fill up probably with in an hour or two. If so, and some people really want to attend a meeting with a problem they have or have a question on how to do something, then if I have at least two people, I will consider a second meeting on a different day. I will try to accommodate the great people that attend our meeting.

There's another possibility using a molding polyline in a separate plan. Once made convert it to a symbol and add to the library.

I think Glenn has the answer. If your (1st. floor) floor height is still set to 0", then about the only other thing that could change this by looking at you image (and everything was okay before) is a change in the building pad.

You can look in the laminate manufacturer's libraries. There's some good stuff there too you can use.

About rotating a structure, I'll tell you about a plan I did about 2 months ago. I placed a house and a separate barn on a property. The house and barn had siding. After the plan was about done, the owners said they wanted the house left alone but wanted the barn turned at a 90 degrees and wanted to have batt & board siding on the barn instead of siding to give a more rustic look. So I did an edit area (all floors) and rotated the barn. Since I sometimes I do the 1x4 batts manually (for better 3D), I already knew what was going to happen. I do the batts by placing one and then transform/replicating it over on the rest of the wall. I usually do a test by copying one over to be sure I'm going in the right direction. once I know, I copy the rest of them. When you rotate the building, you're messing up the orientation in Chief of the X and Y directions. This is why I don't rotate a building unless I have to. I realize this has nothing to do with text but it is something that will probably happen when using the transform/replicate tool on a building that has been rotated. There were no problems using the T/R tool on the house because I didn't rotate it.

I would always rotate the viewport in the layout (if rotating the complete plan), not in the plan view.