How To Change Floor 1 Default Height?

[Sydney23]

I always have GF set as height 0mm, makes sense in my head. I like to set Floor default heights (floor and finshed ceilings) on site when I do the as-built survey.

 

I've always struggled with anything out the usual with floor heights. But this time I'm beaten.

 

If I want rooms in below ground, I have to create a floor below which in my head should be called Basement or Floor -1, but CA calls it Floor 1. So now my GF is called Floor 2.

 

This is confusing to me. When I'm with a customer, I'm now telling them that Floor 2 is actually the Ground Floor, their basement lounge will be called Floor 1, etc -  and they look at me a bit strange...

 

Now, I want to tell CA that the default height for the Ground Floor (CA's Floor 2) should be 0mm and the default height for the basement rooms (CA calls 'Floor 1') should be '0mm minus the thickness of the floor and basement rooms heights', let's say an absolute height of -2400mm. But I can't find out how to change the basement room's floor (CA calls 'Floor 1') to -2400, it insists on it being 0mm. But I want my GF (CA Calls Floor 2) to be 0mm.

 

Then below my basement rooms (CA's Floor 1) I have to add foundations - CA calls Floor 0.

 

I've just spent three hours trying to get this working - and I've been using CA full time for about three years now.

 

I've worked it out in the past by just spending ages clicking on and off the, to me, confusing to the point of meaningless floor settings (floor under this room/floor supplied by the room below etc) but no luck this time.

 

The annoying thing is, if I was faster on CA I could easily double or treble my income - I turned down 7 projects in 4 weeks off work over Christmas/New Year (and I don't do any advertising, all word of mouth).

 

BTW, I'm on X6.

 

Any help for my poor exploding head would be appreciated as I have a queue of customers phoning me asking when their plans will be ready...

[Sydney23]

Right, now I have the levels I want by forcing it via room dialigues rather than the floor defaults.

 

But it's not right, **now all my windows are obscured by brickwork!**

 

I've seen this before and fixed it by changing floor heights but I just can't get them working in this plan for some reason (see above).

 

Anyone?...

[Sydney23]

Fixed it for the time being by getting rid of my basement floor (CA's Floor 1) and putting all the walls/dims etc into CA's 'Floor 0'. Not how I've done it before but it fixed a few things and I don't have time to get it better than this. Haven't the foggiest why it didn't work before or why it is working now, but it'll have to do for now.

[MikeJG]

I don't think there's a way to do what you want.  CA won't let you have two levels below the 1st floor.

 

Your basement floor needs to be CA floor 1 with the floor height at 0mm.

 

Then CA floor 2 floor height would be +2400mm even though it's actually the ground floor.

 

You can label the floors however you want with text boxes.  The only thing that would be weird is the Change Floor/Reference button on the toolbar.

[Joe_Carrick]

Floor 0 should only be used for the "Foundation".  If there's a Basement it should be Floor 1.

[CJSpud]

I have always used Floor 1 as the "above grade - main level" floor with subfloor (or slab) elevation at "0".  Basements AND foundation are Floor 0 for me.  I use Floor 1 when I build the terrain.  This has always seemed less confusing to me.  A long time ago I did one plan as Joe is suggesting and didn't like working with it that way so never tried it again.  I know there are some users who use Floor 1 as the basement level but I just couldn't find any significant reasons to work that way. 

 

Here's an image of a preliminary foundation plan for a project I am working on where I am using Floor 0 for both my foundation plan and the basement level plan in the CD set.

 

 

As you can see, my foundation anno set and layer set are set up to only display the items that I want shown on the foundation plan.

 

My way of thinking presently is that the basement walls are ALSO the foundation walls and the only real difference that arises is when I have a walkout basement wall that needs a deeper frost wall under it.  That shows up in the elevation views so I have that aspect covered IMO. 

 

Maybe Joe and/or others can reiterate what the advantages are in working that way for them.  I am not going to say that I will continue to work the way I do "forever" ... I may someday switch to the way Joe recommends, but not sure when and if that will happen anytime soon. 

[DRAWZILLA]

We don't want to combine basement floor plan and foundation on the same plan. We want them separate b/c here in California we must show all the shear, holdowns, Bolt placement, on the foundation plan. I need the basement floor plan clean for all that Architectural info needed for that page. In all my 40 years, I have never put them together.

[CJSpud]

Perry:

 

Thanks for providing your reasons.  You guys from CA get to have all the fun! 

[Joe_Carrick]

Curt,

 

What Perry said plus:

 

1.  Walk out Basements

2.  Slabs vs Framed Crawl Space on sloping sites - often occurs with partial 'Walk out Basements.

3.  Window Wells (Doors and/or Windows in Walls below grade)  Complicated if it's the Foundation vs a Floor above the Foundation.