Editing foundation walls...

[RicatRandM]

I'm trying to customize the height's of these foundation walls...when I edit them in full overview or elevation view they automatically "snap" to something different and disconnect my "broken" wall sections???

 

Any help would be greatly appriciated.MCGRAW BOATHOUSE EXISTING.plan

[Doug_N]

I downloaded your plan file and took a quick look at it.

 

Walls are, by default, set up to go to the height specified in the room definition.  Foundation walls are treated differently, and have a separate dialogue for a "stem" wall.  The footing height may be adjusted separately in elevation views to sort out step footing.  Wall heights are a struggle however, because they try to snap to the ceiling height.   Without seeing the floor above (if there is one) it is hard to see what you are trying to accomplish.  What is the purpose of the staggered wall top heights?  Why is the building wall tops not symmetrical?  Is this to resist soil pressure because of grade conditions?  

[Doug_N]

One more comment:  The boathouse doesn't have a room because there is an opening where the masonry chimney is specified.  Including a room divider (invisible wall) to close the room might help.

[Dermot]

It sounds like what you're describing is that your broken walls are merging back together when you edit them which is causing you to lose your custom height edits.  One way to prevent this is to change one or more settings in the walls so they won't automatically merge.  For example, just changing the layer of one of them will prevent it from merging with another.

 

Lot's of other issues though.

 

Your outer walls are not forming any rooms because, as Doug has pointed out, they are not fully connected.  This is not really wrong but it will prevent the program from generating any floors or ceilings.  You do form a room in the area on the left side that does have a floor.

 

Your chimney is just a cad box with a text object on top of it.   If you want something that will display in a camera view, I would recommend using a 3D object, like maybe a polyline solid. You could also specify a label for it so that don't need to have a separate text object.

 

There is really no good reason to use a cad block to designate one wall as being different than another.  You could simply make a copy of the wall type and use a different fill color for the main layer.  Or, you could use the wall hatch tool with a solid fill.  Either way, your life will be easier when you need to make any changes.

 

You have some dimensions that are locating markers instead of locating your actual wall openings and breaks.  This is not really wrong but it means that if you need to adjust these things that your dimensions will not update automatically.  

 

I would highly recommend that your review our training videos.  Most of the above is pretty basic stuff.

 

Oh, and you should probably update your signature since you are using X12, not X10.

 

[RicatRandM]

[RicatRandM]

This is a very old boathouse right on the water...I'm really just trying to do a quick drawing for an engineer to spec some "helical" piers to be installed to reinforce parts of the damaged foundation.  Thanks for the help.

[Doug_N]

This is really a bad design in my opinion.  The wall, roof and whatever is constructed above would result in a lateral force trying to move towards the water facing wall.  That should have been a stepped foundation wall.  This is not part of what you are addressing either.

 

 

Not that anyone asked me for my opinion, it just my comment.

 

Doug