Opinion on Furred Walls or Custom Exterior Walls showing interior with furred walls, for basements?

[Michael_Gia]

I just would like to know what the consensus is for finished basements?

 

I always have trouble with furred walls.  They don't play well with windows sometimes, and other times they fight with exterior wall connections.

 

I've had more luck simply creating a custom foundation wall with an air gap, 2x3 stud with drywall on the interior side.

 

Is this what most of you do as well?

 

Have you all given up on the "furred wall" approach because of the issues mentioned above?

 

I would love to only use furred walls because I can control where I want them easily, but they're so damn unpredictable.

 

Thoughts?

[Doug_N]

The largest problem, from my point of view, is the successful creation of rooms. As you noted, when an interior wall intersects a furred wall, because a furred wall has a "no room definition" specification.  This means difficult trouble shooting when trying to figure out why some rooms just don't maintain separation.  The interior wall must be extended past the furred wall to the exterior foundation wall, and that creates a small wall between the furred wall and exterior wall. 

Furred Wall Room Creation.mp4   

[robdyck]

I use both methods as both methods have strengths and weaknesses. In both cases, I almost never run into any issues with windows, although there are some areas where wall connections are ridiculously time ocnsuming...usually when there are more than 2 walls present and I need a specific connections that Chief's wall layers want to override.

That being said, there are methods to control these using various wall types (with or withour Room Definition) to help control the wall connections. And there are still some scneraios where I need to CAD fill a connection for proper plan view and manually finish ceilings and corners for proper 3d view. Rare, but they do happen. I've learned to accept it and cope with it as quickly as possible.

[SHCanada2]

I do basements as most of my work, and used a furred wall as one wall in CA, concrete, air gap, 2x4 wall.. Never had an issue with a window that I can rememeber. I will duplicate the wall and adjust the air gap for walls that have obstructions such as plumbing.

 

What I dont like is I cant get a dimension from the outside of the stud (next to the foundation)..easily

 

I tried using two walls(foundation then draw inside wx4 wall) with the no room definition but kept running into the issues Doug noted

[Renerabbitt]

[mtldesigns]

2 hours ago, SHCanada2 said:

What I dont like is I cant get a dimension from the outside of the stud (next to the foundation)..easily

Same here...

[mthd97]

On 8/1/2025 at 10:04 PM, Doug_N said:

The largest problem, from my point of view, is the successful creation of rooms. As you noted, when an interior wall intersects a furred wall, because a furred wall has a "no room definition" specification.  This means difficult trouble shooting when trying to figure out why some rooms just don't maintain separation.  The interior wall must be extended past the furred wall to the exterior foundation wall, and that creates a small wall between the furred wall and exterior wall. 

Furred Wall Room Creation.mp4   

I am trying to follow this post and from what I learned in this video below, is that the wall needs to be specifically marked as a furred wall in DBX. That stops it from connecting to the concrete stem wall because it doesn’t create an island room. Is that what is causing the problem above that you have highlighted in red or is it something else in this case ?

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/93/creating-basements-with-furred-walls.html

 

[Michael_Gia]

14 minutes ago, mthd97 said:

video below

everything works amazing in chief videos. 
 

it’s in the real world where it sometimes breaks down. 
 

Which is fine if Chief would also admit to that so we don’t all beat our heads against a wall assuming we did something wrong. 
 

The furred wall feature will only ever work properly the day Chief allows us to assign “connection priority” values to a given wall. 
 

this is the tool we have been missing for the last 20 years.

[mthd97]

15 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

everything works amazing in chief videos. 
 

it’s in the real world where it sometimes breaks down. 
 

Which is fine if Chief would also admit to that so we don’t all beat our heads against a wall assuming we did something wrong. 
 

The furred wall feature will only ever work properly the day Chief allows us to assign “connection priority” values to a given wall. 
 

this is the tool we have been missing for the last 20 years.

They are sort off allowing us to do that by marking a wall as furred in the DBX so it doesn’t connect to the stem wall. I am assuming that it has to be a square room first before it will obey those rules ? If that’s the case we may have to use invisible walls as well ? I haven’t tested it yet. 
 

I have so far found that everything in their videos that I have looked up work fine for me. But I only watch the ones that concern me. 
 

I gave up at version 10 when doing a split level home and fighting the program to follow what I wanted it to do. Sure it takes more time in other CAD but at least I don’t get as frustrated when fighting the automation of CA. I know it’s much much better now and if we are doing many cookie cutter homes. Chief is the best tool for full construction drawings with framing and a useable ML and including cabinets. 
 

The more custom design shape homes we design the more the need for other CAD solutions.

If I wanted my house to be shaped like a stealth bomber I would use a jet plane CAD lol.