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Hello everyone. New user here, and of course I have a dumb question. I have an existing lake cottage on a small but incredibly complex lot (3 buildings, 9 retaining walls, and multiple level decks). I want to tear down one of the three structures (the primary cottage) and build a new house, but I don't want to take out many trees, and I want to take advantage of at least some of the existing retaining walls. For this reason I thought it would be best to start by building the existing site in Home Designer, but after three long days of trial and error (Mostly error), I'm ready to give up. The terrain tools was one of the reasons that I selected this software, but I'm finding it incredibly difficult to build existing conditions, especially with a complex set of retaining walls. Am I asking too much of the software? Should I focus on the building first? This seems counterintuitive to me, as so many design decisions need to be based on the existing conditions. Advice would be appreciated. I'm a recovering Architect who quit practicing years ago to work in Project Management, but I've always been good with software, so I thought I'd pick this up fairly quickly. Glad that I only purchased one month, as I'm about ready to punt at this point.

Maybe you could post your plan ?

I do not have a 3d program to create it with. I am a quick study, so once I find the software, a free one if I cn find it LOL, then I can do it. THanks; Jay

I've got HD Suite which will not allow me to print elevations with dimensions. My builder also says he can't use the the PDF's and DWG files it exports to get architectural "stamps". Looking for someone to convert my plans accordingly ????

I am in the mood to consider a 2nd purchase of HD Pro 2025...is this possible or are the legacy versions not for sale?

need to create it in 3d and import and place in plan. then click on it and hit ADD to LIBRARY button.

Good day I'm working on a personal project, and I am currently stuck and looking for help... Any help would be appreciated I'm working on a layout where the rooflines are a little difficult (see inspo)- I'm trying to do the shed roof style on the front porch of the house (between the gable and the shed-style roof that covers the bump-out portion of the house... that I got the shed room to work on). Every time I try things, it makes awkward roof adjustments Is there a way to change the truss direction on the garage section? Ultimately, they are going to be attic trusses - once I can get them rotated Last is I'm trying to get the roof peak to all be at the same height, but the portion of the house with the porch gable and the shed roof ends up making gaps at the intersection of the taller roof and the two other types of roofs (I changed the ridge top height) Once again, any help would be appreciated

Hello, Everyone. I want to put a 3D item into my User Library but have NO idea on how to create the item I want. I use Home Designer PRO 2025. I have presented an image of the ice maker I want to put in a Microwave type base cabinet. The item measures: 23.11 in H x 15.28 in W x 14.57 in D. Any help would be more than appreciated, and thank you all in advance. Jay

Hi Carrie - That's all it was. I can't believe I didn't notice that.......LOL!! Thank you and have a great weekend!!

If you open the Deck Railing Specification is your Wall Type set to use "Deck Railing/Fence"? based on your image it makes me think you'll see something else there. Change it to Deck Railing/Fence and I should resolve.

Generally it is best to copy the plot into the plan with the house as there are less moving pieces to break. Your plot gets shaded in because it has a fill style applied. You're not seeing it in the plot plan because you have color turned off so it is showing up White. I would tackle this by: Selecting the Plot line, the Setback line, and the North Pointer from the Plot plan and clicking "Copy/Paste" Go into the Main House plan and click Edit> Paste> Paste (you can remove the fill style if you want to by opening the items and setting the Fill Stile to None on the Fill Style Panel) Move the lines into place Go into Edit> Default Settings> CAD> General CAD and set it to use Quadrant Bearing and Decimal Feet Go to Tools> Display Options, find the "CAD, Default" layer and set the Text Style to Plot Plan Text Style. Hope this helps!

Good morning - Any idea why siding is showing at the base of the deck railing? Thank you! John Meussner Home Designer Pro 2024

Walls have been snapping doing that in HD Pro since forever, well from 2019 in my experience anyway. You'd think they would’ve fixed the glitches for perpetual licence holders before moving to the ridiculous 2026 subscription version. I’ve given up on walls, I only use them where I need doors or windows. I can’t handle the way they intersect and snap. Use a cabinet. Nobody has time to patch up Chiefs walls.

See attached house floor plan as part of the above question Charlie Sullivan MAIN FLOOR WITH MAIN HOUSE-GARAGE -TP 10-28-26.plan

Hi When I copy the house/garage plan on to the plot plan the set back boundaries move (bump), why is this happening?? I tried to copy the plot plan on to the house /garage plan and I loose the set back, and the plot plan looses its information and gets shaded?? I looked through the items below and they don't really address this?? Any quidance will be appreciated. I attached the two files. The house has a Terrain perimeter and the plot plan has the set back. Charlie SullivanPLOT PLAN 9-28-26-layout garage-with set back-TEST 1.plan

Depends a bit on how you added the piers in plan. The Material List will only show what you have in the project. Did you build the foundation with piers? Did you add piers manually as shapes after the fact?

How do I add piers to the foundation in the materials list in Home designer Pro?

AI, for better or worse, is getting very powerful. In my estimation It won't be long before someone will create an AI version very similar to Home Designer Pro. When that happens Chief Architect will quickly become obsolete. I started on HDP 2016 and upgraded every year to 2025 and I absolutely refuse to go to a subscription. 10 years of loyalty means nothing to this greedy company. They can kiss my Royal American ass.

Thanks, Carrie. Those are great options. Kent

Our next contest is Residential! Share one of your designs for a chance to win Chief Gear. Use any Chief Architect software product to create your original design. You have the chance to win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in this contest. Discover how to enter and more through our blog: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/blog/design-contest/ The entry deadline is November 12.

The results are in! Congratulations to our 3 winners in the Kitchen, Bath and interiors Design Contest. 1st Place – Jorge Arreola of Greymark Construction Co. 2nd Place – Shelly Wood of Axis Construction 3rd Place – Pam Barrientos of Golden Rule Builders View all of the great submissions: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1478416770989135&type=3 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.

If you just want to view the plans. We do have a Chief Architect Viewer program that you can use to open the files. You can request the viewer here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/resources/viewerrequest.php If you are using Project Management in Home Designer 2026 you'll want to export your projects so that the viewer can open them. https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-03212/exporting-projects-and-disconnected-files.html

Hi Kent, I'm sorry to hear that you wont be continuing with Home Designer 2026 but I can understand. Unfortunately, files are not backward compatible so you wont be able to just open the 2026 plan in 2025. Probably the best path forward for you would be to open an earlier version of the plan. One that wasn't saved in 2026 and recreate the changes since that point. Archives can be found in your documents folder. When you first imported the plan into 2026 it would have created a copy of the 2025 version into your Home Designer 2026 Data/Archives folder. If you go in there and look for the first archive of your file it should be the latest 2025 version before being converted to a 2026 version. https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00099/accessing-your-archive-files.html Carrie

Hello All: 1st time posting here - I purchased Home Designer Pro 2025 and began to plan our new "aging in place" home. Last December, I got a notice or email and clicked the upgrade button without reading anything - I was pleased the upgrade price was so reasonable. When the transaction was complete, I finally realized that I had moved to the subscription model - not was I was expecting at all. Looking ahead to the December 1st renewal and I don't really wish to spend another chunk of $$ for the ability to view my mostly complete home plans. I was able to download Pro2025 again and got an error message trying to open my most recent plan file - Does anyone have suggestions re: saving or exporting my files to be backwards compatible with 2025? Thanks in advance to anyone with ideas! Kent Home Designer Pro 2025 Windows Studio Windows 11 Pro, 32 gb ram 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11370H @ 3.30GHz (3.30 GHz) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU (4 GB) Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics (128 MB)