Roof Plane Help

[jaystang]

Hi All,

First time post here. I'm in the process of designing a house. At this point I'm really just playing around to get an idea the type of house that will work best on a lot that I plan to build on. I'm having 2 issues (detailed below) with getting the roof plane to do what I want it to do. I'm using version X10 on a mac if that helps.

 

Issue 1: I'm designing a ranch style home which has two front facing gable walls. One on the right which is the garage and one on the left which is a bedroom. I'm adding a front porch that spans between those two jut outs. The issue I'm trying to solve is, currently the roof plane from the top of the roof to the edge of the porch is the same pitch. I would like the porch itself to have a lesser pitch running off the main roof. I've followed the tutorial linked below with no luck. I've changed the porch wall to have a 3:12 pitch vs the 10:12 pitch that the main roof has. Despite these settings the main roof continues to just keep it's pitch all the way into the edge of the porch. In addition to this not be the exact look I want on the outside of the house, it's also making the front wall on the interior of the house much taller since it's a vaulted ceiling and intersects at a higher portion of the scissor roof truss. Ideally I'd like the interior vaulted ceiling to be uniform.

 

Tutorial: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00045/changing-the-pitch-of-a-single-automatic-roof-plane.html

 

Issue 2: The top of the roof line where the main roof horizontal meets the garage roof, the main roof itself is a couple feet higher than the garage roof. It leaves an undesirable "triangle" that's necessary to connect the roof lines. I'm hoping I can make the main roof drop down and meet evenly with the garage. I'm assuming this has to do with the roof pitch that's specified relative to the depth of the house. I'm guessing the garage needs a slightly different pitch than the main portion of the house. Any tips or tricks on how to go about solving this?

 

Attaching screenshots and the actual plan. Any help would be much appreciated. Open to any other feedback you may have on my plan as well. I'm pretty new to this. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

house-plan.zip

[jaystang]

Thanks for the help @solver. Do you mind showing me what you changed to get the porch pitch different? I must be changing the wrong thing. I was setting the pitch to 3:12 on the porch by selecting the outer porch railing wall and changing in the roof section. Even with auto rebuild on it wasn't taking.

 

Appreciate your recommendation on the exterior. I was hoping I wasn't going to have to make the left side the same width as the right side but I understand why that may be necessary. I'll play around with it.

 

Finally, you suggest the interior needs "lots of work". Mind expanding your thoughts there? I'm here to learn. First time doing a lot of this type of work but I'm enjoying it so would love to see where I can improve.  

 

Thanks again!

[Chrisb222]

2 hours ago, jaystang said:

I was setting the pitch to 3:12 on the porch by selecting the outer porch railing wall and changing in the roof section. Even with auto rebuild on it wasn't taking.

 

Did you check Upper Pitch under Pitch Options, and enter values for your two roof pitches for that railing wall? That's how you create a pitch break like you want.

 

2 hours ago, jaystang said:

Appreciate your recommendation on the exterior. I was hoping I wasn't going to have to make the left side the same width as the right side but I understand why that may be necessary. I'll play around with it.

 

Just my opinion, but I prefer your original roof. I would always rather have a main hip be higher than all the gables, like in your first image. Differ'nt Strokes

[TGMcKenna]

Hi, Jay Stang - w/r to changing roof pitches for porches, Chief Architect training has a great lesson available on YouTube - I think if you look for the session about 1 1/2 story houses you will find it.  It says that it's an hour and a half long, but she really only is presenting for the first hour and a half, and she's very, very good. 

 

Another way to do it is by copying your roof in place and breaking it up into two smaller planes.  A little trial and error, but I thought it was fun and I got the hang of it relatively quickly.

 

Good luck!

[jaystang]

Thanks everyone for the help. I was finally able to accomplish what I was looking for. It was a combination of getting the numbers right on the upper pitch as well as changing the overall pitch on the garage side so it met evenly with the main roof.