HaywardVT

Hello:wall dormer.docx I am attempting to draw a wall dormer. Essentially, a dormer that rests on the exterior wall with the rooflines of the dormer that extend down to the eaves of the main roof below. I cannot find an example of how to do this. Please see attached screenshot. Suggestions??? Thanks, Jim

We are a design/build firm and have been offering Chief services to our clients for some time now without charging for our design time. We are planning to begin charging at this point but we are concerned about liability issues since we are not licensed architects. Does anyone have something like a hold harmless or exemption agreement that they have their potential clients sign to avoid potential legal issues especially if the client were to use our plans for building their home with another buillder? Additionally, it looks like $65-$75 per hour is a reasonable rate to charge per hour for the Chief services. What is your experience? Thank you.

Found it, thanks. It was terrain I thought I had deleted awhile ago, turns out the layer just hadn't been displayed this whole time.

Does anyone know why this is happening? I get the "not enough vertical space, could not create new cabinet module" message when trying to place wall cabinets anywhere on the first floor, even on blank walls. PARKS June 28.plan

Thanks for the help guys, that fixed it. I'm pretty sure I got that weird angle from editing the roof plane in a 3D view. While on the topic of roofs, does anyone know why some walls are missing auto roof returns? I've tried rebuilding the roof planes that don't have returns; they're there once built but when the plane's moved into place the return isn't there.

Thanks, I always forget to check the origin. Unfortunately this didn't fix the problem. To me it seems like a similar problem to what overlapping objects cause, but with this in mind I can't find a solution.

Pulling back a roof plane so the ridges aren't connected replaces what's missing, still not sure what's causing the issue though. E2_Colden RD with Site.plan

1. The foundation wall that is part of the basement and connects the retaining walls doesn't reach the bottom of the floor above it and I can't figure out a way to close the gap. 2. The basement and retaining walls are set to be the same height but they aren't, the retaining walls sit higher up. Both stem walls start at the absolute elevations ( of -10" and the relative heights (I) are 98.5" PAPP dormer work.plan

Does anyone know how to create a wall that covers the triangular area where the stairs are above the work bench? Everything I try either blocks off the work bench on the first floor or takes the place of the wall on the second floor.

Ok, thanks for the help.

David, by "right way" I mean the best way anyone might know of that doesn't cause any problems; where wall sizes and positioning are the way I think are correct, nothing overlaps, and what is made in CA looks like how the finished product would be in real life. That screen shot is what I'm trying to accomplish, if doing it that way works then I'd consider it a right way. If it doesn't, then it would be the wrong way to build that corner. I think you "don't get it" because you misunderstood the question. I'm not trying to build anything in the the red space I drew, that space is already occupied by the 1st floor garage wall. That same wall needs to balloon through or else it stops at the ceiling plane and leaves a gap between that and the roof plane. What I'm "complaining" about is that the walls are snapping back to where I moved them from, or to somewhere other than where I'm trying to get them. How the walls are in the screenshot are basically how I want them, but the interior wall that extends into the red space should be pulled back to the outside of the exterior wall, this is what CA isn't letting me do. I appreciate you taking the time to try and help, but I don't know why you have to talk to me like that. It could be just because we aren't actually talking and I can't hear the tone of your voice, but telling me I need to explain something to you instead of just asking comes of as condescending and implies that I should've known that you wouldn't understand. Also, "It has mechanically followed your commands and now you are are complaining that it has done so. I don't get it." implies that I'm stupid for not understanding a problem that I'm not even having. And lastly, what did I do differently than everyone else on Chieftalk for you to say I'm complaining? Or is every post on Chieftalk just someone complaining to you? When I do have trouble I don't just come to Chieftalk to complain, I try to solve any problem I have on my own first and post in here as a last resort. When I do post, I'm genuinely curious as to what's causing the problem and I want to understand as much as I can about this program because I care about my job and want to be the best employee I can be. The way you just responded was not only a little insulting, but discourages from being a part of the Chieftalk community. I'm not really mad or care that much (enough to type all this haha) but I just wanted you to see my side of it in case you respond to someone else who wouldn't take an answer like that so lightly. Also, like I said, from my point of view I was just asking for help and you basically called me a stupid whiner in a condescending tone, so I guess I kind of had to defend myself a bit too. Eric, can you explain what you mean by an "open below configuration"? The only way I can think of to do that is the way I originally tried building the garage area. I had walls on the 2nd floor that created the garage space, which I defined as open below, but the floor system remained in the walls and showed through the garage doors. How I have it now seemed like the next best way to get what I want without that problem. I've worked on the plan since my original post and that corner doesn't have anything wrong with it visually anymore. It looks finished, but that interior wall is still in the red space of my screenshot, so I have a wall inside of a wall. I think it'll work for now, but I don't know what problems it will cause down the line (I don't think I'll have to show framing for this project, and if I do it won't be for a while). I would still like to know if there's an easier way to control how walls connect, or if I can change a setting that I don't know about yet. Fire house 5334_SF___2 NO WALLS.plan

I can't get wall intersections the way I want them because they keep automatically snapping to each other. I'm using "Edit Wall Layer Intersection" and I still can't get it right. It should be pretty easy to figure out what the final product should look like from a 3D view, just a mezzanine half wall that goes to a corner. I don't know if it's the right way, but the screenshot I attached is what I'm having trouble trying to accomplish in the bottom right corner of the mezzanine. Nothing would go where the red is because the wall on the first floor takes care of that area. The blue rectangle is what I think should be an interior wall with drywall only on the inside, and the wall I outlined in black is the half wall. Fire house 5334_SF___2 NO WALLS.plan

I don't know when or how it happened, but now my whole building is defined as a single room on the first floor. I believe this is what's causing the missing parts of the first floor walls in the garage. Fire house 5334_SF___2 NO WALLS.plan

I just did some experimenting and didn't have a problem framing a double stud in a single wall type. I may have had the interior wall as an interior layer instead of a main layer, I'm pretty sure CA only frames main layers. I was able to fix my original problem with the floor structure in the walls, removing the "open below" room so the mezzanine was the only room on the 2nd floor worked. Thanks for the help guys.

I went to check ceiling heights and there weren't any negative values, I must have already fixed that. I went around setting both exterior and interior walls to "balloon through," I saw some things change but the floor structure is basically still there. "Make the Garage just 1 Floor with the Ceiling Height equal to the 2nd Floor Ceiling of the rest of the structure." I tried this before and it seemed easier to just make the 2nd story grage space "open below." I'm going to try it again right now, so I might figure it out before I get a response, but my 2nd floor plan would just show the mezzanine walls, right? I was originally worried that my 2nd floor plan would be a messy combination of attic walls and the mezzanine, but now I don't see why the 1st floor walls can't just go up to the 2nd floor ceiling. The way you suggested building the walls, Johnny, was how I originally tried making double stud walls in CA, but there are framing issues. I don't remember exactly what was going wrong but a lot of other CA users were saying that only the main layer gets framed, even if the interior wall material is set to have studs too. How I built the walls here is what they suggested is the best way to build a double stud system in CA for now. It could be that that problem was only in previous versions of CA (I'm using X7), and I was having a different problem and just assumed that whatever problem I was having was the one others were mentioning; CA not being able to frame the interior wall layer of the double stud wall properly. Does anyone know of the framing problem I'm talking about? I'm really hoping I just misunderstood something the first time I tried framing a double stud. Defining an exterior wall to have a framed interior wall as one of it's layers seems like it would be the easiest and best way to create a double stud wall.

I'm creating a mezzanine that's open to the garage area in a fire station, so on the second floor I have that garage area set to "open below." In this tutorial video (http://www.chieftutor.com/scotthall4/mezz1.html) when Scott sets a room to "open below" the space for the floor structure disappears, but mine is still there and it shows through the garage doors. I've even tried setting the floor and ceiling structures to 0" but it's still there. I don't know how because it's all the same room, but I just had it so only the smaller area of the garage was showing the floor structure and the larger part had solid walls going to the ceiling. I don't know what changed it back either. This shows the floor structure between the red lines, shouldn't it not be there if the room is set to "open below"? There isn't even a floor there. Fire house 5334_SF___2.plan

Does anyone else notice CA automatically adds room dividers sometimes? I'm assuming it's the way I build my walls and get them in place, but I don't know why I'm not able to delete them. Fire house.plan

Yeah I know it's not really an object that can be deleted, it was just the easiest way of saying I didn't want the whole floor defined as an exterior room. I played with it some more and solved the problem, just had to redraw the walls shared between the garage and the house.

I don't know how, but my whole 2nd floor is now an exterior room. How do I delete this? C3P0_2160SF_4BR_2.5B_3ST(OG)_8'C_11-25-15.plan

I wasn't aware CAD lines snapped to the grid, that helps a lot. Also, I guess closing the file and reopening it will reset the grid origin. The plan I took the screenshot from is now on the grid and I didn't change anything.

I used to use AutoCAD as well and didn't use grid snaps then, but CA snaps aren't as good (even with every object snap option on I can't snap to things I want to) and clicking on an object doesn't always give me the gray dimensions I need to make the changes I want. It's way easier to have grid snaps on so I know the exact distance I move an object without worrying about finding the right dimensions and object snaps, especially with really small values. Ben Palmer, that's a good idea but how do I know the CAD lines I make will be on the grid? That's what I call eyeballing it, and I've done it enough to know that it hardly ever works. It might look like it's where you want it but zoom in enough and you'll see that it isn't. Even if it looks like the CAD line I make is overlapped perfectly onto the grid line, it could be off by a value smaller than the width of a pixel when fully zoomed in. I only trust snaps and dimensions that I know are snapped to the right points. Of course, you're solution would probably work for this situation. The grid can't be snapped to and is only there for visual aid, so if it looks like it's on then it's close enough because the snap distances come from the object and not the grid.

The objects of my plan are offset from the grid snaps grid by a number I can't determine. Is there a way to realign the grid? Maybe choose a point where an intersection should be? Or have it so my mouse snaps to the grid? I don't know why it's designed like this, but grid snaps doesn't snap to the grid, it snaps to the intervals of the distance the grid snap is set to from the original selection point, making the grid itself useless. For example: If an object is offset from the grid (I use 1/4") by 0.0833972978", I can't just click and drag the object and snap it to the grid because I can only move it by increments of 0.25".

Ok, that's how I've been doing it so far, it's good to know I wasn't missing something though. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't ever see the layer on top anyway, except for in a section view.

I'm trying to create something similar to this picture. Is that possible or will I only be able to show it as a CAD detail?

I was basically done with a house plan, but then I changed the size of the top chord in the trusses and now I'm having a bunch of problems. One of them is that I can't make a full length truss anymore. Why is this happening? C rafter practice_2160SF_4BR_2.5B_3ST(OG)_8'C_11-25-15.plan