Draw a basement as the only level??

[DanSchanz]

I'm new to CA, and our company primarily finishes basements. I'm trying to draw up basement plans only, without any main level or automatic roof lines or anything. I need to be able to draw up foundation walls with insulation for my "as built" start to project. At most have a whole wall construction which would include the studs and drywall as well. How would I do this? everything I've seen builds the foundation by inserting it under the main level. The problem is we don't measure up the main level, we measure the basement. And we have to measure all the HVAC, plumbing and structural elements of the basement in relation to the insulated foundation walls to create an accurate plan. Help!

[SHCanada2]

This is most of my business. What you do is create a basement from the main floor, and save that in your template plan. and turn off auto build foundation. You can ignore the main floor, might even be able to delete, I just never have, in case for instance I have to show the new laundry for the main floor if the basement is being suited

 

By having the basement in your template, you can go into the defaults, and go to floor 0 and set the default ceiling hieght. You can also put the furnace, elec panel, HWT, main stack, typical 5x8 bathroom fixtures all on the plan so you are just moving them around. my template plan also uses furred walls for the basement.so i do not have to change the wall type from the stock concrete.

 

And then you create a layout template with the template plan (basement level) linked.

 

Once you have it all setup, it only takes a few hours to create a basement plan. If you know exactly what you want and its a simple rectangle for the foundation, its under an hour. Where it typically takes some time is if you are truly finishing the entire basement and are needing every inch. then the dimensioning to furnace needs to be accurate to any adjoining walls and where humidifiers attached to furnaces will impact where the wall can go, same with anything that has pipes or flues like air exchangers. Bulkheads also take some time as rarely are pipes all run in a nice straight pattern, except perhaps the main duct.

 

The other PIA is the stairs. CA does not have an easy way to have stairs fit within a set of walls. I find it easier sometimes to just draw the first set of stairs up, then draw a polyline rectangle for a landing and any winders as lines, and then stairs up the other direction. As long as the first set of stairs is accurate the render will be accurate as you cannot see the floor of the landing anyway...unless of course you have only a few stairs bfeore a landing, and then you have to do a landing or try the L shaped stairs tool

 

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by SHCanada2

[joey_martin]

You're overthinking this..just draw with concrete exterior walls and turn off everything else. It could be on level 40 for all you care anyway, so just draw the room.