Can Anyone Tell Me Where My Ceiling Has Gone?

[HumbleChief]

Always appreciate your comments Scott. I think I just discovered that in order to control the height of the slab independently of the footing that the room height setting allows this and the stem wall height keeps the footing and the slab 'joined' and moving together. See if I missed something.

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/k38LoQZs9f

[dshall]

Always appreciate your comments Scott. I think I just discovered that in order to control the height of the slab independently of the footing that the room height setting allows this and the stem wall height keeps the footing and the slab 'joined' and moving together. See if I missed something.

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/k38LoQZs9f

I think you got it at the end,  not sure.  The floor cannot be lower than top of footing......  but the footing can be 3.68 miles below floor.

 

Here is a vid if it still does not make sense.

 

http://youtu.be/Cki4DdTqDaU

[HumbleChief]

Yeah I think I got your point in this last vid, something I didn't try in the first.

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/DbymFvFcJ

 

I'll watch yours now. Great vid as always but I think it's pretty easy to get it all done without a foundation level as your vid shows and I think you might have stated as much at the end even though you used it initially to get your framing to show. Either way always nice to see the different techniques and learn just a little bit more about the structure dbx.

[Joe_Carrick]

One key element is that on a severely sloping site is there may be a variety of "Rooms" at the Foundation Level at different elevations and with the bottom of the Footings also at different elevations.  The "Basement" may be "crawl space" in some areas and "habitable space" in other areas.  In those areas where it's just "crawl space" you just leave out the floor slab.

[WendyatArtform]

With a missing ceiling - my QC list includes:

 

Rooms layer turned on for the layerset used by the camera view.

Ceiling Surfaces layer turned on also

"Ceiling" checked in the structure tab for the room

Room above not accidently left "open to below"

No rogue closed polylines assigned to be floor or ceiling openings.

[Joe_Carrick]

Wendy,

 

You are not - as Scott Hall says - out here in Mono-Slab Land.  But it sounds like you also put the Basement on Level 1.  Is that correct?

[HumbleChief]

After doing those vids I realized that I've tried many different times to create a basement using the foundation level (0) but probably won't again unless it's a mono slab and even then having your slab on floor 1 is not a bad thing. May be I won't use Floor (0) again - not sure but pretty enlightening stuff from all you - thanks..

[DRAWZILLA]

The reason why we need the foundation on level 0 is that all the info we have to put on the plan would look very stupid on the basement plan and be very confusing . I always keep my foundation and floor plans seperate.

[Kbird1]

Mick,  again to restate,  your footing elevations are controlled by the FLOOR THICKNESS.  And this may be the way it works,  but dollars to donuts,  I bet the footing will be built at an elevation independent of the floor structure thickness....  

 

The point being,  I think you should control the elevation of the footings  independently of the thickness of the floor structure,  and the way to do that is by opening up the room dbx and changing the HEIGHT OF THE STEM WALL.

 

Great subject guys,  thanks.

 

Level 1 as Basement Beginners luck ? ... playing with the stem wall height was what I was doing actually, as I was trying to show the rigid insulation and gravel as part of the Floor "layers" at 1st , but realised that made the Footing a lot deeper than needed , so in the end made the floor 4" conc. and 4" rigid insul. instead, and used box will gravel fill underneath instead, after adjusting the stemwall height to raise the footing back up.

 

I noticed in your Vid. vs Larry's that you had your Basement at 0" floor height , vs -97" in Larry's so I assume after placing your Terrain Perm that you need to set it at  around -110" to make level 1 a basement? , that may actually work better as I had some trouble building my 2nd and 3rd floors , with the heights jumping to "default" eg suddenly level 2 was 192" not 96" a couple of times, and head wise it might be easier too figuring out the heights 

 

On Joe's note , it was infact a steeply sloping site where I saw the technique talked about last time, Sites are rarely flat which is why I was interested in this,however around here even crawlspaces need poly VB and a 2" slab poured.

 

I did not go as far as doing the foundation plan so now Perry has me wondering... I guess a few others need to  do a quick sample plan so different ideas are seen , I have heard this idea talked about numerous times but have never seen any examples till Larry's Vid (thx again) , so I am still not sure of all the ins and outs.

 

Thanks Guys and Gals...

 

M.

[WendyatArtform]

Wendy,

 

You are not - as Scott Hall says - out here in Mono-Slab Land.  But it sounds like you also put the Basement on Level 1.  Is that correct?

 

I rarely do mono slabs.  I almost never put my Basement on Level 1.  I put it on Level 0.  Even when we do slab on grade here, it's a footing to frost, which is anywhere from 4 to 6 ft below grade, and we want a thermal break.  So a slab on grade here is a footing, a frost wall and the slab is inside, like a garage.

[ladycoralie]

Okay, after reading through all the advice and the great vids posted (many thanks for that), I thought I should go back to the drawing board and start the foundations on 0 and draw the basement there, which you can see on the right of my plan. Then I went to level 1 and started the main living area. There is no 2nd level to this one. I thought I should put a terrain in which is pretty tricky as both of these levels have a concrete slab - monolithic I think -, before I finished off the plan for level 1 as there is living space over the basement.

 

Larry helped me out greatly before with how to build a terrain for this design, but now that I've started afresh, you can see my basement is now filled with terrain and I'm buggered if I can figure out a way to remove it.

 

I have no idea if I've constructed this properly so far for a split level home, so if anyone knows a better way, I'm all ears.

 

Can anyone help me get the terrain out of the basement please? I've put the link to my plan below.

 

Cheers and thanks

Coralie

 

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C06FB433C5FEBEB7%21147

[glennw]

Coralie,

 

When I opened your plan, there was no terrain in the basement.

Is Terrain...Terrain Specification...General...Clipping...Hide Terrain......checked - this is the usual way to control this.

[WendyatArtform]

Coralie,

 

In general:

You may be making more work for yourself than is necessary.  If you draw your first floor first, you can create a foundation easily - Floor Tools, Build Foundation (or Ctrl-F).  That can also be used to update or correct one if you move walls on the first floor.  If you've put things on that basement level that you don't want to lose, put them on your clipboard before updating (including any walls where you've changed the type).

 

About that terrain:

While it's the simplest, and my first choice, I run into instances when "Hide Terrain" leaves holes under window bays or enclosed rooms that are above natural terrain.  So here's another option:

1. On your basement level, select your outside room by clicking close to the walls.  Use the tab key if you have trouble selecting it.  
2. Then - bottom of screen - Make Room Polyline
3. If your terrain is on the basement level, just keep it selected.  If it's not, put it on your clipboard and paste-hold onto the level with terrain.
4. With that Polyline still selected - Convert Polyline -Terrain Feature
5. In the Terrain Feature dbx - check "Make Hole".

You now have a manually created hole in the ground.  Do remember to manually update it with changes.  We put ours on a layer we turn off in most views, so it can be easy to forget that.

[WendyatArtform]

About Splits:

 

Draw your main volumes first, without most interior walls.  Include only the interior walls that separate levels.  Get all your heights and floor construction stuff set.  Then draw your interior walls.

 

I'm pretty sure D Scott Hall has some good videos about splits.  They are an "advanced" use of Chief, so spending a little time on research before diving too deeply into a plan with a deadline will actually get you to your finished house faster than just trial and error.

[Kbird1]

there is also an article on Splits in the KB here   http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00932/

[ladycoralie]

Coralie,

 

When I opened your plan, there was no terrain in the basement.

Is Terrain...Terrain Specification...General...Clipping...Hide Terrain......checked - this is the usual way to control this.

 

Hi Glenn,

 

I took a pic of the terrain in my basement. The outside terrain is right, but the basement is excavated, so no terrain should be inside. Not sure how to get rid of it. Thanks.

[glennw]

Coralie,

 

What you show is different from the plan you posted.

ie, the original level zero external walls were concrete.

What level is the terrain drawn on?

 

Maybe post another plan if it has changed.

 

This is a perspective floor overview of level zero. 

[dshall]

Hi Glenn,

 

I took a pic of the terrain in my basement. The outside terrain is right, but the basement is excavated, so no terrain should be inside. Not sure how to get rid of it. Thanks.terrain in basement.jpg

Wendy gave you one answer.

 

 

About that terrain:

While it's the simplest, and my first choice, I run into instances when "Hide Terrain" leaves holes under window bays or enclosed rooms that are above natural terrain.  So here's another option:

1. On your basement level, select your outside room by clicking close to the walls.  Use the tab key if you have trouble selecting it.  
2. Then - bottom of screen - Make Room Polyline
3. If your terrain is on the basement level, just keep it selected.  If it's not, put it on your clipboard and paste-hold onto the level with terrain.
4. With that Polyline still selected - Convert Polyline -Terrain Feature
5. In the Terrain Feature dbx - check "Make Hole".

You now have a manually created hole in the ground.  Do remember to manually update it with changes.  We put ours on a layer we turn off in most views, so it can be easy to forget that.

[WendyatArtform]

Oh Scott, you still love me!  ;-)

[ladycoralie]

Hi all and thanks for all your help and suggestions. I must apologize for not posting earlier, but I've had a terrible time of things lately. My beautiful old cat, Cuppie, got really sick the week before last with kidney failure and we had to put him to sleep last Saturday before Mother's Day. Our hearts were just broken as we've had him for 17 and a half years. Then on top of this heart ache, I ended up getting a terrible cold and chest infection - no doubt from all the crying I did, and haven't even had a chance to look at my plans as I've been too miserable. Today, I started again and followed the advice posted here and put my basement on level 1. Then I fooled around with the terrain with various regions and I finally got it to work. Thanks for all the tips. I will keep referring to them in the future because they were really great and helped me heaps.

[country]

I would also like to thank everyone.  This was a great learning experience.  The videos and conversations they generated were great.

I am still trying to imagine how to make this work with the lower frost walls at the walk out level but I, at least, now have some good ideas that I can try.  Thank you for the play plan Mick.  It will be a good jumping off spot for this trial and error adventure.