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I got into Home Designer last year as I've been doing a lot more serious DIY work around the house and been getting more value out of the tool. The thing is, I'm not a professional. I can't justify what they're charging for the full suite. What is ultimately going to happen is they are going to lose this growing market of DIYers that have no onramp into their products. Maybe they don't care about that market, and that's fine. But there's no way to really learn their products now. Compare that to Autodesk Fusion where they have a nice free tier for hobbyists and students to learn. They know they make their money from businesses, and keeping the bottom of the market happy helps build a pipeline for people learning CAD tools and taking it to future jobs. I think this is a very shortsighted decision from the Chief Architect folks.

You just lost a customer. I don't use it nearly enough to pay $500 per year. I am assuming you will likely offer the DIY version for a couple of more years, then stop developing it. I am in the software business and any real perfessional would be using the Architect version and doesn't have an issue with a subscription. I used it to design my two houses I am building. Any chance to buy the 2025 version?

Hi there folks! Need some second opinion on buying a (fairly) hei new laptop, a couple of years old. Serviced and comes with guarantee, mint condition. Just upgraded to HD Pro 2026 and need more speed! As I understand, this should do the job! Any comments or experiences would be very velcome, thanks! See link for details. https://www.chg-meridianshop.no/shop/dell-precision-7560-i9-11950h/

Thanks, I will give that a try

Depending on what you have, and what you want it to look like... A soffit or box shape might be easier to manipulate.

Trying to create a terrain wall that steps down but each time I create the next section and step it down it automatically snaps to the first section. I need the wall to step down 5 or 6 times but each time I get the next section close to the other it snaps together so my question is how to stop the walls from connecting to each other.

I have posted my house plan file. please review and share your insights to help me complete the plan

The results are in! Congratulations to our 3 winners in the Kitchen, Bath and Interiors Design Contest. 1st Place – Leslie Ann Gali of Quest Cabinetry & Design 2nd Place – Christine Gauthier of Custom Built Design & Remodeling 3rd Place – Natalia Balic of Darling Concept & Design View all of the great submissions: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=ChiefArchitect&set=a.1314150834082397 We enjoyed viewing everyone’s design and want to thank you all for sharing with us and our community! Varying prize packages will be awarded.

use a cabinet soffit to create a belly band against the exterior wall where you want the exterior siding to transition from one to the other...hide it under the lower roof if you don't want to see it...then you should be able to paint different finishes above and below the belly band. This is how I've been doing it, but I'm new so perhaps others have a better method?

Have you sacrificed a farm animal yet? Back when I was designing roof trusses, any time we had a gambrel roof to design we would gather the design staff and sacrifice a farm animal to divinate the correct pitches and heights to use... just kidding...or am I?

I know that YOU understand what you have, but maybe a pic would be a better visual display.

Thank you Jo_Ann. I have a wall that has one butting roof, and one overhanging roof (one above the other). Looking down the wall, the lower butting roof is on the left, and the higher overhanging roof is to the right. The higher roof is actually over a patio. The right side of the wall should be board and batton top to bottom. The left side of the wall should be drywall below the butting roof, and board and batton above the butting roof. So my challenge is I have different surfaces below the butting roof, and same surfaces above the butting roof. I can't figure out how to make that happen. It's a single story residence with vaulted ceilings from the shed roof style. I hope that helps. Russ

Is auto build roof turned on? Did you select the wall on floor 2?

Not understanding what you have or what you want to show.

Not enough info given.

Hello, First time entering HomeTalk. Designing new house. Trying to draw guest bedrooms on second floor of garage. Currently have gabled roof at 10 pitch. Want to change to a gambrel style roof. Can't get the sequence of commands correct. Highlighting first long wall - selecting "roof" - leaving Roof Style at "Hip", Lower Pitch at 12 and Upper Pitch at 6. Then set Where to Start at 384" Offset at 66". Select OK and then make same commands on other plane of roof. When OK selected, nothing happens. I have watched the video a dozen times but cannot detect what I am not doing right. Thanks! MikeW

Good morning all, I've been struggling with the best practice for a wall I have. One side I have is fully exterior. Above a roofline, the interior side becomes an exterior side as well (I have different interior heights with overlapping shed roofs). What's the best way to manage this? I've been using 'Lower wall type if split by butting roof' with some success, but this particular wall seems to have me baffled. Also, I have occasion where the feature just doesn't seem work at all. Does HDP care if the wall is defined as exterior or interior, and does the butting wall only need to touch the wall, cross over the exterior surface, or cover the whole thickness of the wall? Does it care what side the butting roof comes from? Last question: I'm planning on using 6.5" SIPs for my exterior walls, but standard 4" walls with my interior walls. I struggle with this since the ground floor wall displays at 6.5" thick on the diagrams. Is there a best practice for this too? I switched for a while just deciding to do an equivalent 6.5" wall below in these sections. But that seems wasteful of space and material. Thanks in advance for any pointers. Russ

hi? i compressed the file and i am able to upload it. please see the plan below. you wisdom is highly appreciated. thank you. please review my draft and advice. the draft layout and framing thank you. 2025 FLOOR framing.zip

If you want layers, you'll need Chief Architect Premier. Otherwise, you'll need to copy your Home Designer plan as many times as you need to have different elements shown. You can send each of those pages with the elements on them to the same layout though, so the finished plan looks cleaner.

I'm using Home Designer Pro 2025 and would like to make various plans/views (electrical plan, floor plan, HVAC plan, etc.). Can they be made within a single .plan file or must I make separate .plan files for each specific plan/view (electrical plan, floor plan, etc.) that I wish view? I'm not sure how to view these specific layer sets within the same .plan file. Thanks for your help and in the meantime, I'll keep researching...

wall covering is for wall paper not paint. stripe is because you are using wall covering and it has variables for bottom & top. Delete Wall covering. turn off whatever get rid of it if there Easy way to paint a room is in the room dialogue edit screen go to material page and select WALL INT and or EXT and then select material and go to libray and find your color. OR open in 3d and spray paint it with the ROOM selected and spray a wall not the stripe. But go into room

Hi, i am getting a message that says the file is larger than 14mb as a result i am not able to upload it. how can i go around this restriction to upload the file.

Home Designer .plan file

Hi keith, should i post the homed designer file or the pdf file.

Are you able to open this and do a few screen shots? I attempted to follow your stepped out directions and unfortunately failed. I run into this situation periodically and end up doing calculation measurements sunset.plan