Monolithic Foundations - To Auto Build or To CAD?

[joeyaccount]

 

This is not a drawing for an actual house; just a mock up most of the conditions encountered.  The drawing on the right is my attempt to "auto build", (I just can't seem to get it right.)  A shout out and "THANK YOU" to Vince at Chief Technical support who gave me much help last week.  The drawing on the left I drew with CAD to demonstrate typical foundation construction in New Orleans and how the plans generally look.  Just looking for opinions.  Will it be possible, and practical, to Auto Build Foundations or should I just CAD them?  Is anyone doing Mono foundations with good results?

Joey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Residential Plan Template.plan

[DRAWZILLA]

I do mono slabs all the time and they look pretty good; I think you just need to learn more about it. There is almost always some sort of manually adjusting after auto building to get it the way you want. One hint I use is to put a room label on each room of the foundation with the floor height listed so I can look instantly and see if the height is correct. I noticed the interior footings are not in your chief generated plan, you just have to check the box to have a footing in the wall DBX. and it will auto generate when you build the foundation or it's very easy to add them manually.

[CharlesVolz]

2 hours ago, joeyaccount said:

Will it be possible, and practical, to Auto Build Foundations or should I just CAD them?  Is anyone doing Mono foundations with good results?

Yes, No, Yes.

 

Howdy Joey,

 

I suggest you spend some energy on tutorial videos or one-on-one training, depending on how you learn the best. I can help you with training as can others on this forum.

 

Best,

Charles

[glennw]

10 hours ago, joeyaccount said:

Will it be possible, and practical, to Auto Build Foundations or should I just CAD them?

 

I would say yes, yes, no and follow Perry's suggestions.

[joeyaccount]

Update:  See the attached - Most everything on the Foundation (Pg 0) generated by Chief - Build Foundation and some tweaking thereafter with Chief tools.  The only thing done with CAD is in Red to indicate a fix is needed.  However, I can't seem to find the right tool; or how to use the tool to make the fix.

 

 Foundation Test Plan.plan

[PMMully]

This post is perfect timing.  I have not had many issues with standard walls and footers, either exterior or interior, they seem to work just fine so far. But I do see some "memory" in the automatic regen of the foundation that I have to manually delete a foundation after things are changed.

 

@DRAWZILLA by stating "if the footing in wall" is checked in the DBX, are you referring to "bearing wall", "foundation wall", "slab footing"? I see some foundation/bearing wall directives not being honored in the foundation gen.

 

I do have some interesting results with recessed shower floors that are defined as rooms however, this comes in the form of standard wall footers, which are too big and match the core defaults only, and mismatch what would normally be done in the field. I will watch this OP to see if I learn something that I am missing. 

 

@joeyaccount your OP with the left right drawings, is that just for illustrative purposes or the structural elements of the slab itself (mat slab stuff)?

 

 

[joeyaccount]

PMMully, Thanks for your response.

 

 

The right and left drawings above: The drawing on the left was drawn in Chief CAD as an example for what I would like Chief to automate; the one on the right was my first attempt to have Chief auto build.  The Updated drawing, just above here, is Chief auto generated, of which I learned some valuable lessons on how to select the Footing Walls on the Foundation (Page 0) and make default modifications to reflect conditions needed for the different footing conditions at different locations.  Also, I now have a better understanding of the Room Specification dialog to make necessary adjustments.  I learned that the Stem Wall height is equal to the height of the curb (at a depressed garage or porch) plus the height thickness of the concrete floor slab.  The stem wall width is for example 4" for the curb as shown on the right side of the Garage footing/stem wall; and 9 1/2" wide for a 5 1/2" wide brick ledge and a 4" wide curb such as the footing on the front wall of the Garage and the wall common to the garage and the front porch.

 

At this time, I am looking for help to figure out how to fix the remainder of the problems I am having which are marked in the red circles on the updated plan above.  1. I have superfluous lines where the brick ledge foundation walls intersect one another.  2.  I have superfluous lines where the Garage foundation curb meets the living area slab at two locations.  3.  I want the Brick ledge to be automatically crossed hatched.

 

I've spent hours trying to fix these problems... I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here!

 

[PMMully]

I hope to see some good input here from the crew ... something appears to be up with the layer set and the core setup. Turn off Walls, Foundation and see what you get. Probably some setup thing in the templates as my plans do not do this, at least in my masonry world. Could be that air gap in that wall, change the wall type, etc.

 

If you turn on the foundation step markers, they look to be right, so there are a few lines I would buy off on as they are where the drops appear to be on the FFE changes. There are a few in left field from what I can tell also. I can not even select them, but if you play around and pull some of the generated foundation walls back, you will find it is overlapping foundation wall outlines are the issue. The pic below shows in particular the front porch entry foundation driven by your hidden wall. If you do a cad detail you will see LOTS of generated stuff (that I do not understand why is even there).

 

I did one plan that had a garage next to a porch like that, I got the same results, just some foundation stuff that did not seem right. It might be the dropped floors of porch and garage (and curb) are interfering with each other and the rendering engine can not resolve it. I tried to set your porch to 3.5 to match the garage to give it a bit of help, but it no positive effect. On my plan, right before publishing, I used some cad masks to clear up anything I did not like before it went to get signed off. Primitive and not model driven, but its fast, and you can lock it, stuff like that. I do not remember seeing this on any plan that did not have two dropped rooms next to each other.