Bay Window Room Name Problem on Window Schedule

[CJSpud]

A project I am about to finish has two bay windows in it.  My client has given me the specifications for them as follows:

 

Pella Impervia, Bay Window w/casement flankers, 30° angles, fiberglass construction, 60" high

Unit A:  80" wide, 10-1/2" projection

Unit B:  96" wide, 15-1/8" projection

 

In looking at the Pella website, I see that the frame of the unit has what appears to be a 1" thick plywood top piece while the bottom is comprised of 3 layers - 1" PW top piece; 1" foam insulation; and a 1" PW bottom piece.  Only the top PW piece and the top bottom PW piece fit inside the units' R.O.'s.  Pella calls for the R.O.'s to be 3/4" larger than each units quoted size (e.g., the 80" wide unit's R.O. would be 80.75" x 60.75".  The units essentially are built such that they can have the bottom used like a window seat.  I am showing them to be installed 20" above the finished floor elevation.  My clients plan calls for 8' ceilings (97-1/8" rough) so that means the wall opening will be about 16" below the ceiling height.  This will provide room for added insulation above the unit and with the bottom raised, there will be room for added insulation there as well.  This information isn't really relevant to my issue that I am reporting ... I am just adding it to describe how a manufacturer's bay windows are built (dimensions).  In my plan I actually specified the individual window units as being 60" tall so I am a little on the tall side with what I am showing in the plan but may go in and edit that now that I have received more specific information from Pella.

 

In my project, I have specified in the window schedule that the room name of all windows be shown.  For the bay units, I have likewise checked for all the bay units windows be reported in the schedule separately so that I can get the glass area reported on the schedule.  If I check for each one to be only be shown as one unit on the schedule, then the schedule does not pickup the glass area and report it.  I think it should and request that Chief make that correction on future updates to the program.

 

In my actual project, I have one bay unit that is within the area of a covered porch while the other unit is only under the eaves of the roof (2' overhangs).  My intent is for the builder to put in framing in the shape of the bays from the top of each unit to the bottom of the soffit and porch roofs respectively.  These frames will be covered with sheathing and siding which will weatherproof the tops of each bay unit.

 

The problem that I am running into is that when I generated my window schedule, the bay unit within the porch area shows the porch as being the room it is installed in while the other unit doesn't even show the room name for the room it is installed in.  I called Tech Support to discuss this with them and ask them why Chief was picking up the room name on the outside of the exterior walls rather than the interior room.  Kirk was who took my call.  He was able to reproduce my problem with the porch example .... he didn't put in a bay outside of the porch area but he did figure out what was causing the behavior.  Because in the bay window specifications dialog (dbx) I specified that the bay unit have a raised bottom, this setting alone caused the window schedule to pickup the porch room and place it in the schedule.  If the bay's bottom is not raised, the the interior room name reports to the schedule.

 

MY SUGGESTIONS REGARDING IMPROVEMENTS IN BAY WINDOW REPORTING IN THE WINDOW SCHEDULE:

1.  FIX THE ROOM NAME BEHAVIOR AS FAR AS WINDOW SCHEDULE ROOM NAME REPORTING GOES.  BAY WINDOWS SHOULD ALWAYS PICKUP THE NAME OF THE ROOM ON THE INTERIOR SIDE OF THE UNIT FOR SCHEDULE REPORTING PURPOSES.

2.  SOMEHOW, I WOULD LIKE TO REPORT THE BAY WINDOWS TO THE SCHEDULE AS SINGLE UNITS, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE 3 INDIVIDUAL WINDOWS INCLUDED.  BUT I ALSO WANT THE 3 WINDOWS REPORTED AS "SUB ITEMS" SOMEHOW, SO THAT THE SCHEDULE CAN PICKUP THE GLASS AREAS FOR ALL THREE WINDOWS, AS WELL AS THEIR DESCRIPTIONS AND OTHER SPEC'S.

 

Attached is a simple plan with one room and an added porch.  There's a bay window with the spec's I used for one of my projects bay units and I have included a schedule to show that the room name for the bay unit is "porch" rather than that of the interior "living" room.  Again, when you raise the bottom of a bay unit, this caused Chief to look to the outside of the exterior wall to find a room name.  This behavior, in the minimum, needs to be fixed.

 

I am also attaching a Pella document on bay windows from there website if you are interested in seeing how the units as specified, built and sold.  I will put a link to this thread on the suggestion forum as well.  Until this gets changed, anyone incurring this problem will have to utilize other means to get the schedules looking right, such as converting to text.

 

Having difficulties with Cheif crashing and attaching my files.  Will do this in a 2nd post.

[CJSpud]

Back again.  After shutting down my computer, restarting, opening Chief & Chief Talk, I opened my test plan and added one more bay window unit on the left wall where there is no porch to deal with.  I did not mess with any of the OOB settings (didn't drop the top or raise the bottom of the bay unit) and deleted and replaced the window schedule.  Low and behold, the new bay did not report a room name at all.  THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

 

Anyway, hope this help someone else having to experiment with settings etc. if you are using bay windows in one of your projects and including the room names in your window schedule. 

 

Here's the attachments:

 

 

BayWindowProb.plan

PellaImperviaCasementBay&BowProductDetails,Dimensions,Sections_F2BayBow.pdf

[CJSpud]

Also, if a user chooses to display the bay window's "specific" dimensions (width and projection), it would be nice to be able to select those dimensions so we can re-position them as needed on our plans.  Sometimes there can be too much stuff needed to be shown in small areas and being able to maneuver dimensions in particular is needed.

[Joe_Carrick]

Curt,

 

Chief's Box and Bay Window Tools are only minimally useful for Framed Site-Built configurations.

 

CA really should add Bay and Bow Window Symbols for the various Manufacturers (Pella and Andersen at least) and fix the "Custom Window" tool so that openings, casings, sills and lintels are properly handled.  Getting the settings right is pretty difficult presently and the Plan View doesn't match the 3D View.  It's been several releases since this was last addressed and it still doesn't work like it should.

 

I have a set of Andersen 45 degree Bay Window Symbols that I created and I've offered them to CA but they need to make adjustments to the "Custom Window" tool.  Currently I'm using the symbols as "Exterior Furniture" and placing them on a "Pass-Thru".  

[CJSpud]

Joe:

 

I remember you mentioning your bay window symbols not too long ago.  If you would have done yours with a 30° angle I probably would have contacted you.  How do you handle your window schedules ... what/how do you report the bay window(s) information?

 

I am thankful that the bay window tools, at least from a visual point of view, work as well as they do.  Hopefully, functionality will continue to improve with new updates or releases.  And yes, I would like to see some brand name bay/bow/box window symbols for our library. 

 

It has been some time since I've had a customer even want this type of window unit (v10) so I was a little rusty when I first placed them in the customer's plan.  Then I saw a nice video by David Michael that explained things a little better on how the tools work which was much better than the "dragging method" I was attempting to use.  Thanks David.