Patio door sizing needs to be fixed. What is your workaround?

[GeneDavis]

Patio door products from the recognized brand-name maker such as Pella, Andersen, Marvin, and more, are tricky when modeling in Chief, because of the way Chief handles sizing.  This, for both sliders and hinged patio doors.

 

The 60610 slider in Andersen's 400 series is 71 1/4" wide x 82 3/8" high, and that is the frame size.  I specify the jambs for these clad units at 3/4 thick x 8 wide, with a -2" inset, to get the exterior projection the clad frames have, a look I want in 3D views from outside.

 

Specify a slider in Chief at that size and Chief models the unit with the door panels at that size, and for height, places the top of door panel at your specified 82 3/8", with a 1/16" margin atop, then the frame.  So in 3D, you get a door unit that, floor to frame top, is 82 3/8 + 1/16 + 3/4 = 83 3/16" high.

 

One can check this out by taking a section view, but you are getting only a vertical section.  We cannot see in Chief what the actual build is in 2D plan view because of the simplified way Chief draws a door.

 

You have to keep this all in mind when framing, carefully making allowances height- and width-wise in order to get rough openings sized for real-world building.  It is of no concern to you if you aren't doing wall framing or if generating framing, aren't doing dimensioned wall framing in con docs.

 

But where this starts to suck, is when you are wanting transom windows mulled to these patio doors, and windows with transoms adjacent on elevations, and you want horizontal alignment.  You also want the transom window widths to match that of the patio door, so all looks good when mulling.

 

I do the workaround by downsizing the patio door in height and width.  See here, a 24 high transom atop a window, and adjacent, a 24 high transom a door.  Both transoms have their bottoms at 82 3/8 inches, which matches the height of the 60610 door unit.  You can see heights all matching.  Units, casings.  The window unit is mulled, the door and xsom, not yet.

 

 

The transom is specified at its real-world height and width.  71 1/4" width to match door below.  But because of the way Chief does door sizing, the door shown is specified at 69.75" w. x 80.875" h., with frame spec'd at 3/4 x 8 with a -2" inset, just like all the windows in the picture.  Before trying to mull door to window, things look good.  Look what happens next when I mull.

 

 

Since window units size by frame and door units size by frame opening (or panel sizes with zero clearance), Chief gets confused when doing a mull, and adds an unwanted margin around the window unit, but not the door unit.  That nice matchup on width and height seen in the unmulled view is gone.

 

But there is a workaround, and it uses the (in which release was this new?) frame positioning option for windows, which sizes windows by frame if checked one way, and by frame opening if checked the other way.  It is buried in the frame panel, and my OOB default has the window frame checked for "has frame."  When you change the option within that to "window size excludes frame." a funny way to say you are sizing by frame opening, you can make this all work.  See this pic. 

 

 

All is good!  But to get there I had to downsize the door and the window above it.  All looks exactly right in elevation, and by fiddling with the framing specs (r.o. clearances) in the unit before generating framing, it'll frame right, but the schedule will need some work to make things understandable for the window quote to be done by the suppliers.  If I use the size in the schedule it will be wrong.

 

So, how do you handle these? 

 

 

[JacobB]

48 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

But there is a workaround, and it uses the (in which release was this new?) frame positioning option for windows

Have you tried adjusting this setting on the door (Jamb panel) instead of on the window? This setting was added to doors specifically to handle doors sized by the jamb/frame. Originally, windows didn't have this setting, but during beta testing users wanted it for windows as well.

 

[GeneDavis]

Thanks, Jacob.  I was unaware it was done for doors.