Railing height dimension craziness

[mtldesigns]

I am curious on why a railing height dimension changes when moved off the railing, then goes back to how it should be when moved back on top of the railing...  see vid.

[PitMan71]

That's strange. It's almost as if the railing doesn't exist when the dimension is outside the railing wall. It may have something to do with the fact that you can't snap to any of the objects in a rail wall on plan or in elevation view. I played around with it on my end and its does the exact same thing.

[Joe_Carrick]

In California (CRC) a guardrail has to be a minimum of 42" if the floor surface is more than 30" above grade.

Evidently the IRC requires only 36".

Edited 23 hours ago by Joe_Carrick

[PitMan71]

30 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

In California (CRC) a guardrail has to be a minimum of 42" if the floor surface is more than 30" above grade.

I will say 42" feels safer to me, but only on second story and above.

[robdyck]

On 5/29/2026 at 9:45 PM, mtldesigns said:

I am curious on why a railing height dimension changes when moved off the railing,

A simple clue as to what Chief is locating can be found by going to the Extensions / Markers tab and checking 'Draw Marker'.

You'll see that Chief is locating the top of plate. Because it's an auto-locate, it jumps to a different top of plate locate when the dimension is moved. The 'Why' I can't answer...just the 'what'.

You should also notice that once that dimension is moved away from the wall, it is probably next to impossible (if not entirely) to locate the top of the railing. A point marker is needed.

 

[mtldesigns]

@PitMan71

@Joe_Carrick

You guys are right.  I did change this to 42" after I sent this post.   Even though IRC says 36", this is a vacation rental in Mexico Beach, I'd hate it if some person, a kid especially, got to excited and fell over.  

 

@robdyck

I see what you mean.. don't like Marker for this type of dim.  I'll stick with the manual 42".  And you are so right, even if I wanted to move the dim off the rail, I cannot pick the top of rail, unless I cheated at put a line there to dim to.

 

Edited 16 hours ago by mtldesigns
added to post

[robdyck]

16 hours ago, mtldesigns said:

I see what you mean.. don't like Marker for this type of dim. 

I only suggest turning the marker on for inspection purposes. Another useful inspection tool for this is dimensioning in section view. You will notice that Chief will create a point marker when you try to dimension to the top of a railing cut by the section. This sort of tells us that we can't really locate rails with the dimension tool (at least that's my conclusion).

Summary: If I needed to move the dimension away from the railing, I would also simply add a point marker or cad line and dimension to that (exactly what you alluded to).

[Joe_Carrick]

Has anyone tried setting the deck ceiling height to match the top of railing?  I think that might help with the dimensions.