joey_martin

Make the foundation layer line type dashed. Never been a big fan of the CAD mask when you can control this with layers.

Simply raise the height of the ridge or the plate height while checking the box to lock the pitch.

Drag and drop. Blocks can be imported as well from the edit menu, but ordinarily I simply grab what I want and drag and drop.

Make sure you have the box checked for a ceiling over that "room". Looks like no ceiling is present, unless you didn't want on, then you need to check the size of the framing members based on the size of the fascia you have spec'ed.

I generally "market" the permitting side of things as a added bonus. Proper design and planning will eliminate most, if not all hold ups at the permit office. I have always sold myself as a designer that will more than pay for myself, if given the opportunity. Many times a client will come in with a sketch from their builder, or a floor plan printed off the internet with some notes they have talked over with their builder. In the past 20 years, there have been 5 specific occasions where I explained to the client, sometimes with the builder present, why their ideas wouldn't work as they had them sketched. On these occasions, the builder swayed and threw around phrases like "oh, I can overcome that", or "you are trying to scare them into buying plans." These 5 specific occasions, I had to be asked to come in and rescue the project, for the very reasons I pointed out. My pitch has been that you can pay me $8K-$10K for proper design and planning, or you can pay $20K in change orders and re-ordering cabinets and doors, and structural headers, that I told you wouldn't work in the first place. The top home builders in my area will send clients my way, and those that I have had to rescue will send them now, but there's a whole directory full of "contractors" that have no use for design and planning, especially if the building department don't require it.

2' thick slab or 24" stemwall? Either way, set up the garage defaults for the foundation and re-build the foundation. If you have auto foundation on it will make the change for you once you set it that way.

If the foundation wall is a pony wall, simply select to have the lower portion shown while in plan view. This will eliminate the brick ledge showing when you don't want it to.

@DianneDSC you are preaching to the choir. After 20 years, 2 national awards, many great projects in my portfolio, there simply is zero interest or respect for the profession if the people that homeowners turn to don't show respect. Local builders and building officials will not "inconvenience" (their words not mine) prospective clients by needing to spend money for an architect or designer. I have set up booths in spring home and garden shows, been featured in magazines, heck, I even have some of my work used in a college of architecture text book!! All of this interests no one in my area. I love teaching and working with kids. I also love(d) traveling for the NAHB and teaching classes for them, but I would much rather have a thriving design office. I simply could not afford to be ignored and still provide for my family. When the new local building official stopped requiring plans and State permits for commercial jobs, I was doomed. We could have moved down to Indianapolis, or up closer to Chicago and I would have had more opportunities, but we simply love the small, close knit community we live in.

Depends on where you are working in Indiana. I do more work from out of state than I do here to be honest. There are a great many local building department here in the great state of Indiana that do not require home plans in order to pull permits. Heck, my local building department has stopped even requiring commercial projects to get a State Design Release before allowing them to do work. In the past, the local building department required plans for commercial, but now...nope. New pet shop, 2 new pub/eateries, and an updated set of office suites have been completed in the downtown portion of where I live. No drawings, no permits = NO INCOME. Residential, and especially remodeling, forget about it. Napkin sketches, or some scribbles on graph paper from a "contractor" and all 7 of the building departments within an hour of me will give you a permit. Indianapolis and Hamilton county are the only jurisdictions that require drawings to get permits. I now teach full time, but have my office open to do a project now and then when it comes along. I also do some teaching for the NAHB. Do I think you can make $80K? If you are in Marion County, Lake County, or Allen County maybe. Anywhere else, not without some connections from outside the state.

What area of the country? Permit plans in California are far different than permit plans in my part of the country (Indiana).

Send me the particulars and I will shoot you are price. joeymdp@gmail.com

Where are you and how soon?

@Chrisb222 my builders would want a P.T. sill plate bolted on top of the steel beam so that the lumber isn't in contact with the steel, and so that they could toenail the joists into something. Something to consider.

2 ice dams. One on either side of the small ridge you placed in there. When the snow and ice build up and then start to melt, the backup would push it up under the shingles.

That cricket is wrong. Would simply create an even bigger mess. Do it like this.

B/W plot lines with my patterns aet to a gray that I like. Gives me the look I like.

In short, I believe the answer is no. Everything is programmed to the first floor. Chief tends to think in terms of the first floor line being the best place to measure from. While the majority of my builders also think that way, every now and then I get someone that wants the top of the stem wall to be zero, and I am left with doing a lot of math.

How about carving out a corner of the pantry to place the AHU. That would be a little more centrally located.

Make sure the layer for the camera views is turned on. They are probably there somewhere, simply turned off and you can't see them.

As someone that came to Chief Architect from AutoCAD, I can guess that the issues you are having is that you expect/want Chief to operate the same way as AutoCAD and thus, the headaches. My breakthrough came when I 100% abandoned AutoCAD and took a week to completely immerse myself into Chief Architect. Things vastly improved, and now it's the only software I use. As Richard stated already. You can bring CAD files into Chief. Either into a plan view or CAD view, or directly into the layout, though that generally requires some work on the scale.

If you mean this button...then you are looking in the wrong software. It's in SketchUp

Delete that wall and use the half-wall tool and set the height as you want it. You can also use a railing, and turn it into a wall as needed. Also, set the wall to "no room definition" so that it doesn't try to compete with the room specs.

AMEN +1,000,000

What exactly is the question?

Once you send that to layout, does the extra line still show, or is it just in vector view? If it does still show in layout, simply choose the edit layout tool and delete it.