robdyck

All I can say right now is that experimenting with no room definition changes the lines in unexpected ways. If all those footings are 'no room definition' I get this: Changing interior footings to 'no room def..' gets this: Spec the room as unexcavated gets this:

Pull this wall away from that gable end wall and the siding rebuilds.

The same process I mentioned previously will work. Ensure you rough openings are set to 1/4" and change the text on the the Header elevation marker to something like 'top of r.o.' or what ever works for you. Make sure that elevation marker is included in your storypole defaults. The image I posted above was using an automatic storypole dimensions.

If you want to mark the top of windows, simply change the rough openings to 0". Add the 'Header' elevation to your storypole dimension defaults and rename it. Changing those rough opening dimensions may cause other problems...but you'll figure out if that works for you or not.

I have physically built and drawn hundreds and hundreds of walkout basement homes over the last 30 years. Like many things in Chief, there is often more than one way to achieve the desired outcome so I wouldn't attempt to persuade anyone that one method is better than an other. Rather, we should choose a method that is logical for us to understand and implement with regularity. And we should endeavor to explore and evaluate other methods to see if we will benefit from adapting our usual strategies. The main reason to keep the foundation on Level 0 and the main floor at elevation 0'-0" is the simple logical understanding of the building. No mental gymnastics are required to understand the information from a room or floor dialog when the elevations being used in the model are obvious and intuitive. Elevations, whether relative from a floor or absolute apply to many elements within the building so maintaining that logical understand can be helpful and offsetting by the floor structure and floor height dimensions combined can be enough to 'break' the mental link for many people. Assuming a walkout bungalow for this topic, I inherently 'know' all the structural elevations I will be using, whether it's the ceiling height, top of windows and headers, dropped elevations of porches and decks, top or bottom height of posts and beams, stairs and landings or the absolute elevation of various trim and decorative components. BUT, if I were to force the addition of 16.75" and 109.125" (for example) to those known elevations, they now all become unknown. This can become even more cumbersome if I'm including schedules that reference elevations, like a beam schedule for instance. It's also going to be more difficult for me to verbally communicate with a foundation crew or framer or truss supplier, if a question by phone comes into the office. I'm sure many other people have CAD reference guides already existing in their saved Elevation and Section views because regionally, the foundation step heights will be similar if not the same, generally speaking of course. In Canada, the code generally calls for a minimum 4'-0" foundation depth for heated structures, so that's what I'll reference here. This makes the setup for walkout foundation walls quite simple. All foundation walls along the back can be set as pony walls with the 'Height Off Floor' elevation set to 0". This results in a concrete wall portion equal to the slab thickness...for me, that's generally 4". So the simple process of manually editing the bottom of the back foundation walls can be done in any camera view by dragging the bottom of the wall down 44". Once one wall is pulled down, you can usually just drag the vertical portion of an adjacent wall to continue that lowered elevation. The side walls are a bit more time consuming, especially if you're factoring in a site specific grading plan or architectural controls with exposed foundation limitations. But the process is still simple. Generally, I'd use a Full Height foundation wall from the front to account for backfill heights over 4'-0", and then stepped pony walls from that point towards the back for the remainder. CAD Lines or Terrain Features on a reference layer can be used as a visual guide to ensure the correct foundation depth below grade, and the correct foundation extension above grade. On my Right and Left Elevation cameras, I also keep a reference polyline to represent the concrete wall portion with Line Lengths displayed and I'll often position and size this using even foot increments (where possible) before adjusting all the foundation wall steps. Are there some limitations? Yes. But are there rooms under the basement floor? No. And when factoring in the approved and proposed grades along a building, it's probably easier to adjust your wall steps in elevation view than attempting to adjust invisible walls and sub-basement rooms in plan view. In my own practice, I've had some more complicated projects with multiple foundation wall types or multiple foundation floor elevations where moving everything up a floor was practical and helpful, but those projects are not the norm. In summary, I prefer that the model in Chief logically matches the reality of the building. It just makes more sense to me than utilizing an outside-of-the box approach. I really appreciate seeing and talking about other methods and approaches with everyone on this forum because I, for one, can be guilty of getting stuck in my routines!

For most homes with walkout basements, I show both the upper and the lower walls (Main Layer Only). I also label those wall portions. Regionally, I don't need to show 'concrete only' because the foundation crews are very familiar with walkout basements and can tell which portions are stepped pony walls versus full height foundation walls. The rare times that I do have a need to show 'concrete only' a new SVP with different pony wall settings and a few polylines to mask the window / door spaces is about all that's needed.

This will be painful: If you choose to do this, make a backup copy of the plan first. And, PM me if you run into difficulty or want some help to work through it. It won't be easy...but it won't be too bad either. 10-15 minutes should do the trick.

A simple way to address the brick connections at the corners (make the air gap match the layers from the framed wall above): AND merge the 2 brick materials!!

I know that there are various methods and user preferences for constructing walkout foundations, but you've clearly identified one of the drawbacks to the method of using the 'wrong' floors for each level. This method is mathematically too 'off' for my mind and I would much rather prefer to use another layer set and saved plan view to manage the display of concrete only foundation elements. For walkout foundation, everyone has to 'pick their pain' and this method seems a bit more painful to me. One problem is that on Floor 1, the garage foundation room is also below the Pantry. That creates some confusion about the Floor 1 garage foundation room heights. I'll extend the house foundation below the Pantry walls. The Garage Foundation on Floor 1 room will get it's ceiling and floor structure layers zeroed out / removed and a rough ceiling height of 44" (assume 4' foundation). Garage Foundation walls on Floor 1 can be set to 'hang floor platform... or balloon through... This combination will allow the floor 1 fdn walls to build to the top of the garage slab, but not higher. The Garage Foundation room on Floor 0 will get it's floor zeroed out / removed and a stem wall height of 0". In summary, this creates redundant foundation plans / walls / rooms for the garage. And it requires manually building a garage foundation on floor 1 in order to auto-build a foundation on floor zero, all while using mental gymnastics about room types and building elevations. If you're building the garage foundation on floor 1, then you could just uncheck 'Build Foundation Below' and skip the redundant foundation elements on floor 0.

Not sure if you mean 1/4" overall or 1/4" each side, but either way, Chief models those correctly for me, but only for windows. Drywall is directly up against the door jamb regardless of the rough opening. DOORS:

I've also noticed inconsistency with the automatic label display and have to frequently select items and set the label to 'show' in the view.

I'm noticing that everything is slow. And in the NVIDIA Control Panel, I can't add Chief X18 to the program list. I had no speed issues with the Beta versions.

My mistake. I has accidentally selected the roof plane over the garage.

The roof structure over that area has a structure depth of 3.5". Change that to 9.25 and uncheck soffits. Then, select all the rafters and open-close the dialog box.

Hey Gene, can you share a plan file?