footing heights

[BruceKC]

Going crazy trying to get the footings in this basement to be the same level, and having no luck. The rooms in the back are all the same structure numbers, but Chief is raising the footings on a wall that is part of the same room. Raising it on the back corner and not on the side. What am I missing?

[Kbird1]

 

Usually I wouldn't advise editing Walls manually , but if they are troublesome then you may need to break SOP and in an Elevation View try Editing the Walls

Top and Bottom ( this auto adjust the Footing ) , similar to how you Step a Foundation.  See the KB Article on the Technique....

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01809/creating-a-stepped-foundation.html

 

 

Mick.

[BruceKC]

Thanks for the help, but this is a problem that recurs on every plan.  I really like Chief a lot, but my frustration level is about to blow.  Is there a reason that the footings on the basement are not uniform height?  Seems like an easy thing, but if it is, I'm not finding it.  I drew a test plan with one living space, one porch and one garage and got everything to work perfectly, but those room numbers in the structure tab don't work on other plans.....I think my blood pressure is about 500/400 right now.  I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with a program.  It would seem that if you set your foundation height in floor heights, then ALL of the footings should be identical in elevation, but they're not. 

[robdyck]

5 minutes ago, BruceKC said:

Thanks for the help, but this is a problem that recurs on every plan.  I really like Chief a lot, but my frustration level is about to blow.  Is there a reason that the footings on the basement are not uniform height?  Seems like an easy thing, but if it is, I'm not finding it.  I drew a test plan with one living space, one porch and one garage and got everything to work perfectly, but those room numbers in the structure tab don't work on other plans.....I think my blood pressure is about 500/400 right now.  I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with a program.  It would seem that if you set your foundation height in floor heights, then ALL of the footings should be identical in elevation, but they're not. 

Post that plan and I'll try to help. There may be something simple that you're overlooking.

[Kbird1]

3 minutes ago, BruceKC said:

Thanks for the help, but this is a problem that recurs on every plan.  I really like Chief a lot, but my frustration level is about to blow.  Is there a reason that the footings on the basement are not uniform height?  Seems like an easy thing, but if it is, I'm not finding it.  I drew a test plan with one living space, one porch and one garage and got everything to work perfectly, but those room numbers in the structure tab don't work on other plans.....I think my blood pressure is about 500/400 right now.  I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with a program.  It would seem that if you set your foundation height in floor heights, then ALL of the footings should be identical in elevation, but they're not. 

 

You'd need to provide the Plan ( or a test plan with similar issues) , so people can give you advice as there are a number of things that could be wrong, and like you I suffer from this now and again as sometimes Chief is "too smart" ( or dumb? ) for it's own good. Some thoughts though...

 

Slab thickness differences   (Chief puts slabs right on the footing)

stemwall heights

Ceiling Heights 

 

M.

[BruceKC]

Here is the plan which is not finished at all, but the basics are there.  Beyond frustrated.

Builder.TEST PLAN.zip

[robdyck]

1. Create a room type for UNEXCAVATED.

[BruceKC]

I'm not sure what you mean.  How would that affect the footing heights?  I have the room in the basement, back right, which has the footing on the side at one height, and at a different height on the back of the room.....Am I missing something?

 

[robdyck]

2 minutes ago, BruceKC said:

Am I missing something?

Rooms left as "Unspecified" don't incorporate all the settings. You're essentially telling Chief that you're not done so don't build anything proper in those areas.

[robdyck]

You also have rooms on the main floor that aren't specified properly. Several rooms have the 'floor supplied...below' when they should not. Start with the Mud Room.

[robdyck]

All of these have the floor settings of a garage...room supplied by floor below.

[robdyck]

The room type "Basement" does not work correctly. There is a bug in this plan that prevents this room type from accepting the default floor structure.

[robdyck]

You have too many items not set to the default and too many items not defined correctly. You should seek some paid advice from one of the advance Chief users or from Chief Tech Support. Invest a couple of hours in paid training and it'll pay for itself on one project! You won't regret it.

[Chrisb222]

1 hour ago, BruceKC said:

this is a problem that recurs on every plan. 

 

I looked at your plan. If this stuff is happening on every plan, then I assume the problems are in your template plan. Nothing like this should be happening on every plan.

 

There are a lot of issues. If my guess is right, then you might be better off to rebuild a new template from a stock one, and start over. There are a lot of issues with this plan.

[BruceKC]

Thanks everyone, we do have a new template that we spent a lot of time on with help from Dan Bauman, but that was before these plans were in the works.  I'm guessing that importing this plan into a new template won't work?

 

[Kbird1]

3 hours ago, robdyck said:

All of these have the floor settings of a garage...room supplied by floor below.

 

This stills happens here occasionally too, even when Walls and Footings are the Default Foundation AND the Room Type ( garage) has Mono Slab unchecked, so I am not sure what triggers it, and would turn off Room Below  providing if I could permanently, as we aren't even allowed Slabs on Grade, even Garages have too have Stemwalls and Footings.

 

M.

[HyperTrex]

Spent some time with this plan and it looks like most of the problems are related to your stem wall heights being set differently between the different rooms.

 

For example: the closet room has a Stem wall height of 109 1/2" and the room next to it as a Stem Wall height of 113 1/2". Change this on the Structure panel to match and that will fix some of the problems.

 

Another issue I noticed is the room with the water heater and furnace in it is set to "Room Supplies Floor For Room Above" on the Structure panel for that room - uncheck that checkbox. Once you do that, set the floor height of that room to match the rest of the rooms on the foundation and adjust your stem wall top height.

 

7 hours ago, robdyck said:

The room type "Basement" does not work correctly. There is a bug in this plan that prevents this room type from accepting the default floor structure.

 

There is a setting set incorrectly in the Basement room type (and probly others). The Floor Structure has been set to be treated like a framing material instead of a concrete slab. To fix this, go to your Default Settings, then Floors & Rooms, then Room Types, Select Basement and click Edit. In the window that comes up, click on the Edit button next to Floor Structure. In this window, uncheck the Framing checkbox and click OK. Click OK out of the Defaults and that should give you back a floor underneath the basement room and the Wet Bar room.

 

Hope that helps!

[BruceKC]

Wow!  You are all so wonderful and helpful, I can't tell you how grateful I am.  Long time Autocad User, I love Chief, but I've never been more frustrated and I'm sure all of this is going to help and fix my issues.  Thanks again everyone.

[SNestor]

@BruceKC  - Bruce, all I did was open the plan and rebuild the foundation and all the footings were aligned...I didn't spend a lot of time reviewing the plan but you might also review your defaults then reset the foundation level to the "default". 

[SNestor]

@BruceKC - I was looking at the way you built the front porch thought I'd mess with it and try to build it a different way. You might take a look at the attached and see what I did. 

 

FYI - I used a post-to-beam railing wall. Made the wall wide enough so that the beam is centered on the columns. I removed the floor from the porch room...used a "solid" in it's place...I put this solid on the "slab" layer. I also used the stock columns from the Chief library and made a few basic edits to the 2D cad block. 

 

I also changed the rafters in the porch roof to 2x6...and the ridge board. You're original plan had 2x10's with a 2x6 sub fascia. This was lifting the soffit and creating issues. Not sure you want to frame it this way...just wanted to let you know what I did. 

 

 

Builder.TEST PLAN-Edited.plan.zip

[BruceKC]

Thanks Steve, I'm looking over all of this right now.  I suspect a lot has to do with faulty room definitions.  Let me take a look at what you did.  I did rebuild the foundation as you suggested and that lined up the footings, but some of top of foundations were different.  I'm investigating.  I know a lot of this is due to my relative newness to Chief and my reliance on Autocad experience, Just getting too old for this I think, but I do love the program.

 

[SNestor]

44 minutes ago, BruceKC said:

"I did rebuild the foundation as you suggested and that lined up the footings, but some of top of foundations were different"

 

The foundation wall tops are most likely different because the floor platform thickness in the room above is different.

[BruceKC]

Thanks Steve, I appreciate your help and everyone elses.  I think we're getting this sorted out with all the help..frankly I was beginning to regret moving away from Autocad, but I'm feeling better about it at the moment.  I'm probably just too damned old to be learning new software, but it's a done deal right now and I think we made the right choice.