Foundation floor changes elevation when closing a room off with a foundation wall

[SH_Canada]

I'm doing an addition. and I cannot get the *&^&* foundation to show up properly. I started with the wrong floor heights and had to go back and adjust, which is fine. but it kept showing up wrong, so I ended up moving walls on every single room so it would show up as one room on the main floor and one on the basement floor.

 

so it looks fine, but if I move the wall below to close the one foot gap (to actually truly represent the existing foundation), the new addition room lowers and the stair room lowers.

 

Been fidlying for an hour. extremely frustrating.

 

Thanks

 

what it looks like before I extend the wall (no idea what the 2 little dashed lines on the bottom are:

:

 

now when i close the wall:

 

I get this:

 

and this

 

 

how can the mere act of closing in a wall (And creating a new room) change the elevations of the floor?

 

I even checked to see if the foundation defaults were correct. And they appear to be

 

Any idea why this is happening?

 

 

chuck fed up.7z

[richoffan]

Try going to the first floor defaults > structure > floor below and check what that default is set to... Just an idea

 

[SH_Canada]

ok, now for some reason after I saved it and posted it, it magically works. but now I see the same thing once I try and move the interior wall next to the foundation wall:

before:

 

 

then I move the inside wall by one arrow up

 

and bang

[SH_Canada]

12 minutes ago, richoffan said:

Try going to the first floor defaults > structure > floor below and check what that default is set to... Just an idea

 

thanks I just tried doing that including changing the floor/ceiling platform (When my heights were out originally, part of it was because I had the floor at 11-7/8 I joist, but they are 2x10

 

 

if i take the foundation wall back to make everything one room again I have:

 

then once i close the wall I get on the left room( the right room(original house) keep the 91 and 94 above properly) below

 

it has a difference of 2-5/8"

my defaults are

floor 0

 

floor 1:

 

no idea where I am losing 2-5/8"

 

and the little picture it shows in the defaults look correct:

 

[richoffan]

ok your difference equals the framing 11 7/8 - 9 1/4  so... I would check your framing defaults. It appears Chief is trying to force the framing member. I can see where it is forced off the default by no check next to the wrench

[SHCanada2]

5 hours ago, richoffan said:

ok your difference equals the framing 11 7/8 - 9 1/4  so... I would check your framing defaults. It appears Chief is trying to force the framing member. I can see where it is forced off the default by no check next to the wrench

 

so this got me thinking. The screenshots above are the defaults. so why is there a default checkbox in the defaults dbx. by simple definition wouldnt anything in he default dbx be "default". why is there a check box there?  perhaps this is the default from somewhere else?  if so, I cannot seem to find it, and the documentation does not seem to differentiate between the dbx called from the default and not called form the default. i tried checking and unchecking, and it does not seem to make a difference, but now it seems that it is working.

 

No idea, its almost like some setting changes a cache or something

[richoffan]

It seems, and I'm guessing here, your thinking the dbx is the default. The dbx for the associated area (new vrs existing for example) is the override for the default. Go to defaults > floors and rooms > floor levels and check the settings for the first and basement levels

[SHCanada2]

3 minutes ago, richoffan said:

It seems, and I'm guessing here, your thinking the dbx is the default. The dbx for the associated area (new vrs existing for example) is the override for the default. Go to defaults > floors and rooms > floor levels and check the settings for the first and basement levels

thats where I was, that what the screenshots were from.

 

But I found something more interesting. If I keep the inside wall away from the wall, I can select the "room between the two walls" nd I can set it to 91 in the dbx, click okay, but if I open back up again, it reverts back to  98-5/8, but if I move the left inside side wall by the stairs to the right two bumps, it will keep the 91.

 

I've seen this before, I remember keeping the inside walls away from the concrete foundation walls. This works most of the time, but because I have stairs along the outside wall in this plan, I need to maximize the square footage. I cannot be losing inches simply because I cant get the program to work. Maybe a double wall is the better answer?

 

I cant be the first person to have this problem...

[richoffan]

Just a thought before I call it a night Jasonn - when you checked / changed the floor framing did the stem wall correct? Its tied to the sill so it will screw with the rough frame height

[SHCanada2]

attached is a video which shows the problm

e

[SHCanada2]

12 minutes ago, richoffan said:

Just a thought before I call it a night Jasonn - when you checked / changed the floor framing did the stem wall correct? Its tied to the sill so it will screw with the rough frame height

..hmm I dont remember,

 

but after I did the video I rechecked the floor 0 defaults and they were not correct (not sure how it got back to that), so now it is back working, for the second time.

 

still seems odd that when I eliminate a room, or make it micro sized, all of a sudden it transfers the defaults to that room. me thinks CA has a "if room size is less than x sq ft, then ignore current room structure heights, and use defaults" rule

 

 

[SHCanada2]

ok this is interesting. I go into my room dbx, structure for rough ceiling for basement is at 91, and 94 for stem wall. This is correct, same with my micro room between the wall and the foundation wall.

 

Then I go to edit ->defaults settings->floors and plans->Floor levels->Floor zero and change rough ceiling to 85 just to see what happens, stem wall still at 94. click ok, get out of there, and then go back to my room dbx. The rough ceiling is now 85.

 

I did the same for the top floor except changed floor 1, and sure enough it changed the room on that floor as well.

 

This is interesting because what it means is the room structure rough ceiling height can be overridden by changing the defaults for the floor. But I believe this is inconsistent behaviour. Most other defaults only change, when a new item is done. For instance if I change the default window size , CA does not go around changing my existing windows. Granted floor structure is not the same as room structure, but it obviously is overwriting the room values.

 

also interesting is if I am at the correct 91 and 94, and go and change the edit ->defaults settings->floors and plans->floor/ceiling platform-> floor structure from 10 to 11, my room rough ceiling changes from 91 to 92.  This explains why my ceiling went down when I changed from 11-7/8 to 9.25. although I would suggest CA is moving it in the wrong direction. If I decrease my joist height, shouldnt the basement ceiling get taller? the setting lock floor top/bottom on structure resize did not seem to change the behaviour. and it does not seem to change the basement ceiling elevation, it still sits at 10" after I changed the floor to 11, but it does uncheck the default.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[glennw]

 

 

Have a look in the help file for Dynamic Defaults.  

[SHCanada2]

4 minutes ago, glennw said:

Have a look in the help file for Dynamic Defaults.  

I shall do that, thanks, it might explain a lot...except for the whole, make the room puny, then bang, CA changes the heights of the current room, but never know, I'll read up on it

 

[HumbleChief]

I've been losing the battle you're fighting with Chief for over 20 years. Gave up long ago and just thrash through changing defaults and foundation room with spec's that I've never understood until I get things right, never really understanding the paradigm that Chief uses to define such things. Once you get what you want make sure you save because even though those defaults should not change and many understand how to get them stable there's decent chance a wrong move can change everything back to square one. Hang in there and with the help on this forum you'll get there.

[SNestor]

@jasonn1234If you post your plan I'd be happy to take a look at it. 

[SHCanada2]

1 hour ago, HumbleChief said:

I've never understood until I get things right, never really understanding the paradigm that Chief uses to define such things. Once you get what you want make sure you save because even though those defaults should not change and many understand how to get them stable there's decent chance a wrong move can change everything back to square one. Hang in there and with the help on this forum you'll get there.

Thanks, my next question was going to be, how many people just redraw from scratch after spending hours trying to fix it?

 

1 hour ago, SNestor said:

If you post your plan I'd be happy to take a look at it. 

 

Its actually posted at the top, but I think I have most of it documented now. I would suggest that the puny room problem is a bug. i.e. if I have two rooms, setup correctly, and virtually eliminate 1 by moving the wall, the current big room or the puny room, should not magically change elevations based on the defaults. it looks to totally be a function of the room size. but i need to read up some more on the active defaults.

 

So i think the lesson here so far, is I cant just go into the room to change the elevations. I need to setup the floor defaults/structure defaults to match...if I have a tiny room(wall beside foundation). Whereas before I always just set the room elevations to be correct and did not care what the defaults were

 

...but i'll read up some more on the active defaults before asking for some assistance on the plan

 

thanks all

 

[Alaskan_Son]

11 minutes ago, jasonn1234 said:

...but i'll read up some more on the active defaults

Read Glenn’s suggestion again.  

[SHCanada2]

1 minute ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Read Glenn’s suggestion again.  

i stand corrected "DYNAMIC" defaults. good thing you reminded me otherwise I'd be reading the wrong topic .... and I spend a lot of time reading

 

[Chrisb222]

21 minutes ago, jasonn1234 said:

Its actually posted at the top

 

I for one could not open that file

 

Might be Mac related ...

 

[SNestor]

I'm sorry...I did not see you had posted. However...I cannot open the file. You should post a .plan file format. 

 

[SHCanada2]

19 minutes ago, SNestor said:

I'm sorry...I did not see you had posted. However...I cannot open the file. You should post a .plan file format. 

sorry i'm a windows user and posted a zip file to keep the size down. Let me see if i can post a smaller file

[SNestor]

@jasonn1234 - I got it open. Just had to change the .7z to .zip

I'll take a look.

[SHCanada2]

plan as I will post: that living label is for the puny room between the interior wall and the foundation wall

current elevation everything looks good:

 

move that wall to the foundation, it forces the puny room to become really small (to the left of the stairs)

 

and now the elevation is hooped

 

plan attached

 

chuck fed up.plan

[SHCanada2]

it essentially modified an existing room' structure with the defaults once I moved the wall to make the room puny.

 

Granted the defaults are wrong, but who would have expected this kind of "if room made small, then change other room to defaults" behaviour