lock roof ridge height

[mazakintegrex]

hello,

I had no idea there was a forum.  this is great!  I have one question for any knowledgeable experts out there!  

is there a way to use auto roof planes & lock all the top heights of the roof ridges so that they all match?  I've been working on my house plan for a few months now & have created manual roof planes to do what I am kind of after, but it is a real pia when a wall needs bumped out or something is revised.  all the rooms are set to the same height, yet it generates roof planes all over the place [height wise].. I've had better results with baseline polyline manipulation, but still left with the same issue.  I want to check a box that says "lock all full gable ridge heights" & let the pitch be the variable.  basically I want full gable ridges 1,2&3 to all be the same height and span the main 3 structures of the house. but when I generate auto roofs, its a mess!  

I also need gable 3 to slope over the porch at a lower pitch and join with gable 1- auto roof bones a hip over porch, if I change the roof group of the octagon nook it gets even wilder!

rocking with CA premier x12 

thanks in advance! 

[DavidJPotter]

Sorry to let your hopes down but there is no "automatic" way to do this. Here is why: Roof systems are determined by the geometry of the floor plan against the pitch you assigned to roofs. Roofs bear on usually parallel walls, the distance between those pairs of walls ALONE determines the resulting ridge height between them.

 

The "good news" is that you can do this manually by methodically raising, manually, the ridges so they match BUT then those manually edited roof planes will then have differing plate heights as a result. 

 

If this is unwelcome news you can blame Euclid as he is said to have invented the subject.

 

DJP

 

 

[mazakintegrex]

David, 

thank you for the quick reply.  that makes sense.  I have three different width sections coming together.  if I can ask you-- from a building standpoint, is it impractical to build a varying pitch house to achieve an even ridge line elevation?  

[glennw]

Yes, a waste of time in IMHO.

Instead of having same height fascia/plates, same overhangs, etc, you will have to make compromises as some will be different and therefore making it more difficult to build - apart from the above, you will end up with bastard valleys and/or hips.

Apart from all that, the roof as a whole will look better with the same pitch and different ridge heights.

The only exceptions I would make would be to increase the pitch on a gable roof where it is a feature like over an entry way, patio, deck, cathedral ceiling, etc., but not to make the ridges the same height.