robdyck

I'd suggest using the program default wall type for deck railings: Deck Railing/Fence. I'd make a copy of that wall type, set it's thickness and other properties, and then start by drawing one railing wall and customizing it before drawing the rest. You can change them all at once if they already exist in your plan. An even better suggestion is to customize everything so your defaults work for you better than the program defaults and save these railing types to your library for future use. In your example, you should be able to simply achieve almost everything using the railing tool. Some additional suggestions: Adjust the wall width to best suit your needs (columns aligned to the exterior or centered on the wall) The Beam section of the Rail Profiles tab is great for adding simple, rectangular beams or more complex beams with cladding and crown / edge moldings. Don't use a 3d solid for a rectangular beam...use a ceiling beam. Set it's properties, and then copy and CAD block it and add to your library for future use. Make the auto-generated Attic walls invisible...unless they won't be! You can learn how to manipulate those settings to create what you want BUT in many instances using the railing wall tool will be slower than modelling almost everything manually. Using just the railing tool provides you with less flexibility and control for plan /elevation / section view display of the components and labeling. It only save times during design development when you need to move railing walls through several iterations.

You're right, they must both be 7" for the eave sub-fascia to build correctly. So, the program doesn't function as it should!

In the roof structure tab, set the sub-facia depth to 7". Rebuild the roof framing.

That's happening because of the Interior-4 walls that have been turned invisible to create the Porch room. Change them to Frame-3 1/2" and that problem will be corrected.

I can confirm that (on my system as well) the appearance of labels in 3d views, specifically windows and doors, is not working properly...not even close.

Hi Gene, did you confirm that both views were using the same set of defaults? Perhaps one view had a default set where the end-to-end locate settings don't pickup framing or cad...

You'll need to use a point marker. You can place one manually, or the dimension line may generate one that you can move manually. Try locating the top of the glass dome and a point marker should appear. It appears as though Chief will not recognize the top or bottom of a light fixture or any other electrical symbol.

That is controlled by the layer and can vary from one layer set to another. You can choose a text style, re-define a text style, or create a new text style to control this display.

The 2 transom windows on the right are not on the same floor as the doors. They are in the attic walls on the 2nd Floor. You'll need to copy them down to the floor below and change their elevation reference to 87 1/4" 'From Floor'.

Presumably the wall framing is being rebuilt. Chief's rebuilding deletes it all and replaces it all. The dimension extensions that located something that got deleted then get replaced with point markers. Why not all of them and only some? I bet no one can answer that.

You will also need to replace the default Floor and Ceiling Platform setting to correct the material used for the sill plate.

Hi Chris, the problem is that the foundation wall is currently hardwired for this incorrect sill plate. I don't know why, but Chief is holding on hard to an incorrect setting. To fix this, you need to use the Import Settings tool. Select his and then navigate to and select the template plan file for X17. Once you have the file selected, choose the foundation wall and select the Replace option. Press F12 and the sill plate will build correctly. The foundation walls will also rebuild correctly, BUT Chief will not display them correctly until they are selected, and open-closed! Then, the top of foundation wall will be displayed correctly as well. Oddly enough, the sill plate will be an OSB material.

It does build correctly if you just replace the goofy ceiling plane. That thing seems to be hardwired to be troublesome.

There's a couple of things that could be adjusted, but this is project has a buggy ceiling plane. It is not building as it is spec'd and I'd report this as a bug. In this plan, here's what I see for the ceiling plan (top of screen). the Hieght Inside Wall is not correct. Ceiling plane at bottom of screen is in the wrong location, but it's height is correct.

If you don't have the Electrical parent and/or child tools visible on your tool bar, you can also access the rope light tool by clicking on the Build menu at the top. Build>Electrical>Rope Light.

You would use the Export Plan as Project function. Alternatively, you can send just the plan file (if you have one) to a zipped folder from within File Explorer.

Can you incorporate the idiosyncrasies of a single building inspector who decides to interpret codes differently than any other jurisdiction, or even any other inspector in their own office? And any written code note that we could include on a plan has to allow for inconsistent application and enforcement of the aforementioned idiosyncrasies.

Hi Gene, do you have a plan you can post? Alternatively, you could PM me a download link to your plan file and I'll take a look.

One option to consider is creating a cad block of an existing framed landing and adding that to your library. Before adding it to the library, I would ensure this framing has all the properties defined for simple and repetitive use. I personally find this to be just as quick as editing what Chief builds (referring to custom ceilings or decks). A custom ceiling plane can also be used to generate the framing, and while you can't save or block a ceiling plane to add to the library, you can save a polyline to convert to a ceiling plane. In all these cases, the heights of the objects would need to manually entered to coordinate with the landing elevation in a particular project. I know this isn't a prefect solution, but I thought I'd suggest my preferred options. That being said, I rarely generate framing for a landing. Even if Chief added a landing framing function, I wouldn't expect it to be anymore accurate or flexible than deck framing or floor framing.

The transform/replicate tool can be used but I'm quite sure that will require knowing angle values and entering those values. Even if using copy / paste, this is still prone to user error or even being slightly less accurate based the number of decimal being displayed and rounding. There's no reason you can't use it but I find it more cumbersome. Another option is to use the Angular Dimension tool and the point-to-point move tool (or any other function for alignment on the target line. 20251010-1256-07.3151745.mp4

This is relatively simple by using the automatic sorting function. Have you tried this function out?

The 'make parallel' tool is really the simplest option. First rotate the polyline so the desired edge is close to parallel with the intended object. Then, click on the desired edge, then double-click the 'make parallel tool and select this option: Then click on the target object.

Option 1: allow for the outer profile of the truss in your building design and leave the truss spec's up to the supplier. Indicate the roof space clearly in your section drawings. Option 2: Same as above, but include roof trusses in your section drawings. Manually edit the truss members to get as close as possible. Note that your trusses are illustrative and that supplier's spec's take precedence. In other words, do more work that's not necessarily accurate and at your own expense.

The actual wall type doesn't really matter when the foundation height is 0", but a 16" wide foundation wall gets the piers aligned correctly. I 'painted' the piers instead of changing the default material for the foundation/slab. The pier spacing I used is simply an example. Everything here is automatic.

Hmm, better be prepared for more issues! That's a 42" x 66" window!