SNestor Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 OK...I thought I could do this so easily. Nope...I came close to grabbing a stick of dynamite this afternoon. I am trying to create a dormer over a room that has a vaulted ceiling. Actually...the ceiling plane is at a 4/12 pitch...the roof is at a 9/12 pitch...and this seems to be the problem. The dormer creates a "shaft". If you set the dormer walls to be "roof cuts wall at bottom"...well, the walls get cut off at the 9/12 roof pitch. The ceiling however is way lower than this area...so, it leaves a big gap. I have tried using a hole in roof...and a hole in the ceiling plane...but, the "shaft" option is always grayed out. So...yes, I'm doing something wrong. Is there a guru out there that knows the secret to this conundrum? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DzinEye Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 I did something like this semi recently,. But the ceiling was flat. Seems like the same problem though. When I get back to my computer I'll see if I can figure out what I did. Are you using an auto dormer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 Just finished a similar scenario. This is a shed dormer on the 2nd floor. I used a p-solid for the exterior cladding. It's just so much faster. A few notes: the cheek walls are on the Attic level. All roof planes are on the 2nd floor The vaulted ceiling plane extends under the cheek wall. I extend it to the inside of the framing of the cheek wall for proper dimensioning in plan view. I use an interior 2x6 partition as the cheek wall. The 1/2" drywall is close enough to the 3/8" OSB for me and allows my p-solid for exterior cladding to 'land' on the right surface when drawn in section view. None of my cheek walls have a default top or bottom. I take a section view and manipulate the wall polyline myself because Chief will mess them up forever and ever amen if I don't just do it myself. section views at key locations are critical. I recommend getting one side nailed down and copy/reflect it to the other side of the dormer. The Final Key Point: Trying to use Chief's auto tools will NEVER get you exactly what you need. Be prepared to make a few items yourself using objects that are stable. P-solid for cladding Wall Polyline (from interior section) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 Yea...I realize I could use solids but I guess what I’m wondering is what I’m seeing correct behavior or am I doing something incorrect? Solids are a work around...and I’m more than capable of using them as a fix. But I’d prefer being able to correctly use the software and build a dormer with the tools Chief provides for this situation. So the question is - do dormer tools work or not for this type of roof/ceiling condition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DzinEye Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Revisited my plan to refresh my memory. Pretty sure I did something like this but now trying it can't quite get it to cooperate. Try it, maybe you'll have better luck. Put a skylight in the roof adjacent to the dormer and unchecking 'skylight', and checking Generates shaft to ceiling...and selecting manually edit ceiling hole. Then drag the skylight over to your dormer and shape the ceiling hole as you want it, and break and shape the skylight hole to the necessary shape of the roof hole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaskan_Son Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 6 hours ago, SNestor said: OK...I thought I could do this so easily. Nope...I came close to grabbing a stick of dynamite this afternoon. I am trying to create a dormer over a room that has a vaulted ceiling. Actually...the ceiling plane is at a 4/12 pitch...the roof is at a 9/12 pitch...and this seems to be the problem. The dormer creates a "shaft". If you set the dormer walls to be "roof cuts wall at bottom"...well, the walls get cut off at the 9/12 roof pitch. The ceiling however is way lower than this area...so, it leaves a big gap. I have tried using a hole in roof...and a hole in the ceiling plane...but, the "shaft" option is always grayed out. So...yes, I'm doing something wrong. Is there a guru out there that knows the secret to this conundrum? Can you post a plan so I don’t have to assume things and redraw from scratch myself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Steve and I were talking about this yesterday. I actually was able to do it with 2 dormers on one roof. However I could not get it perfect on the other roof plane. See picture for the imperfection. Plan attached. steve nestor dormer:scissor truss test 1.plansteve nestor dormer:scissor truss test 1.plan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Well....... I was able to do it again..... do you know what the secret is? I ain't gunna say....... well.... I will give you a few hours to see if anybody else can figure it out and then I will share the secret. steve nestor dormer_scissor truss AND ANOTHER.plan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 very interesting...... I wanted to do another..... I was able to do it but there is a secret steve nestor dormer_scissor truss AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER.plan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 39 minutes ago, dshall said: very interesting...... I wanted to do another..... I was able to do it but there is a secret steve nestor dormer_scissor truss AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER.plan Scott - thanks for taking so much time to look at this question...very much appreciated. You are so close on these dormers...which I assume take a lot of expertise and time. However, look at my attached picture of one of your dormers...still lots of issues. Why? C'mon Chief - give us tools that work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 8 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said: Can you post a plan so I don’t have to assume things and redraw from scratch myself? Michael - use the plan Scott posted...it's one we've both worked on. Would love to hear your comments...maybe we are missing something so simple? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 9 hours ago, solver said: Not automatically. Clearly incorrect. It can be done with a bit of fiddling. Thanks Eric - yes, it's the "fiddling" that I'm interested in. You pic still does not look like a "perfect" dormer...even with "fiddling". (but...much closer to perfect than anything I've accomplished) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Where I always get hung up is that The Ceiling Hole options aren't available for a Roof Hole...I don't know why that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 11 minutes ago, robdyck said: Where I always get hung up is that The Ceiling Hole options aren't available for a Roof Hole...I don't know why that is. The entire process is convoluted...Roof hole, ceiling hole, skylight...oh my! I'm off to see the wizard... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaskan_Son Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 5 hours ago, SNestor said: Michael - use the plan Scott posted...it's one we've both worked on. Would love to hear your comments...maybe we are missing something so simple? Sorry, have to get back to work and don't have time for this anymore. I see what you're talking about though. That situation is just not one Chief has been programmed to handle very well. There are a few tricks that can be employed in combination such as: Reducing ceiling plane thickness to get rid of the unwanted bands Using an extra roof plane (defined to be structurally invisible by adjusting settings and using a Gap material type) down at the ceiling height to cut walls off down there instead of up at the main roof plane (would require hole in upper roof plane to be adjusted Creating a dormer room set as Open Below Using unique wall types for the dormer walls to make layers disappear where desired Using Gap material types where beneficial in some of your object definitions Manually reshaping wall polylines (probably not necessary though) And obviously using polyline solids...in this case I would likely only use them to create the interior wall surfaces I would probably use some combination of the above, but they are all obviously pretty convoluted steps. There's nothing simple or automatic I know of to accurately model that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 25, 2020 Author Share Posted June 25, 2020 5 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said: Sorry, have to get back to work and don't have time for this anymore. I see what you're talking about though. That situation is just not one Chief has been programmed to handle very well. There are a few tricks that can be employed in combination such as: Reducing ceiling plane thickness to get rid of the unwanted bands Using an extra roof plane (defined to be structurally invisible by adjusting settings and using a Gap material type) down at the ceiling height to cut walls off down there instead of up at the main roof plane (would require hole in upper roof plane to be adjusted Creating a dormer room set as Open Below Using unique wall types for the dormer walls to make layers disappear where desired Using Gap material types where beneficial in some of your object definitions Manually reshaping wall polylines (probably not necessary though) And obviously using polyline solids...in this case I would likely only use them to create the interior wall surfaces I would probably use some combination of the above, but they are all obviously pretty convoluted steps. There's nothing simple or automatic I know of to accurately model that. So...all that said I glad to know it wasn't user incompetence. Really...if my hammer was close by I might of smashed my computer. @Alaskan_Son thanks for taking the time and posting some great suggestions on how to accomplish this task...much appreciated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 25, 2020 Author Share Posted June 25, 2020 11 hours ago, dshall said: very interesting...... I wanted to do another..... I was able to do it but there is a secret steve nestor dormer_scissor truss AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER.plan Scott...please, post the "secret". Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 The secret is, do not put a hole in the ceiling, instead shape the ceiling plane around where the hole in the ceiling needs to be and then when the ceiling plane overlaps itself, the hole is created. You can copy that dormer roof and roof hole and ceiling hole to make another dormer....... .... but it won't work if you try to do the shaped hole again..... once the shaped ceiling plane method is used, you do not need to do it again.... weird. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaskan_Son Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 6 hours ago, dshall said: The secret is, do not put a hole in the ceiling, instead shape the ceiling plane around where the hole in the ceiling needs to be and then when the ceiling plane overlaps itself, the hole is created. You can copy that dormer roof and roof hole and ceiling hole to make another dormer....... .... but it won't work if you try to do the shaped hole again..... once the shaped ceiling plane method is used, you do not need to do it again.... weird. Sorry buddy, but I think all the examples posted above look like poo. Not sure what method i would ultimately use since there are so many little variables from one job to the next, but I went a head and took a few minutes to mess with that first example plan posted. Here's a quick example using using 2 or 3 of the various tricks I posted above... steve nestor dormer_scissor truss test 1.1.plan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 17 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said: Sorry buddy, but I think all the examples posted above look like poo. Not sure what method i would ultimately use since there are so many little variables from one job to the next, but I went a head and took a few minutes to mess with that first example plan posted. Here's a quick example using using 2 or 3 of the various tricks I posted above... steve nestor dormer_scissor truss test 1.1.plan Yep, a cleaner look on the inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted June 26, 2020 Author Share Posted June 26, 2020 I think we need to just say it...Chief - fix the dormer tools so that we can construct these types of dormers without losing our collective minds. Jeez... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaskan_Son Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 2 hours ago, dshall said: Yep, a cleaner look on the inside. Ya, I was messing around with a couple different options and changed the wall type at one point. I just never changed it back. It can be changed back to the normal wall type and you'll get framing. It may or may not be accurate depending on how that's being built though. Anyway, I'm not suggesting it's perfect by any means. All the various possible methods leave something to be desired and the best method will come down to the specific plan and what the plan is being used for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFEAR10199 Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 Chief Talk Online Team: I'm having the same issue listed above can anyone look at the file, I uploaded and help me. I want to have a 6/12 ceiling plane under the dormers (120" T.O.P.) and have the walls to come down to my manual ceiling plane. been working on this for too many hours. SHED DORMER ISSUE.plan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneDavis Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 For this one from last year, I tried a bunch of stuff but gave up and used solids to do the drywall fills where needed. The trusses framed correctly, as did the cheek walls. I recall doing the 2x4 ceiling joists manually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFEAR10199 Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 Nice Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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