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I saw that but for some reason the defaults for a basement floor are set with concrete, foam, and subfloor. I edited it in defaults and I think I figured it out now but still glitchy

There is no home designer 17. Home designer uses years, chief architect uses X(numbers)

Ooof lol, I originally posted on a different forum and the person who helped said they didnt have home designer x17 so i figured that was what i used lol. thank you for the assistance ill post there.

If you're using Chief Architect, best to post on that forum https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com This is the site for their Home Designer software. Same parent company, different program capabilities.

Hi everyone, First off, I apologize in advance for my limited experience and knowledge. I am a complete amateur and definitely not an architect or engineer. I’m trying to learn as I go, and I genuinely appreciate any patience or guidance. I am currently designing a small cabin in Chief Architect and have run into an issue with my shed roof and wall heights that I cannot figure out. Project specs: Cabin size: 30' x 16' Shed roof design Roof pitch: 1.5/12 Intended wall heights: Low wall: 8' High wall: 10' Vaulted ceilings throughout following the roof line (no flat ceilings anywhere) The intended framing setup is: Low shed wall: 91 1/2" studs 4 1/2" combined plates 8' overall wall height High shed/gable wall: 115 1/2" studs 4 1/2" combined plates 10' overall wall height Two side gable walls: 91 1/2" studs 4 1/2" combined plates 8' overall wall height with rake walls built above following the roof slope From my understanding, the math should work correctly: 1 1/2" x 16" = 24" 8'-10' 24" difference ? So unless I am misunderstanding something fundamental, a 1.5/12 pitch across 16' should naturally create approximately 2' of rise, meaning an 8' low wall and 10' high wall should be achievable. However, in Chief Architect, I cannot seem to get the roof/walls to generate correctly. What I have tried: Turned OFF “Flat Ceiling Over This Room” Set my top plate/wall height to 96" Set roof pitch to 1.5/12 Manually drew roof planes Rebuilt roofs/framing multiple times One thing that confused me even more is that I actually managed to get it working temporarily by splitting the structure down the middle with an interior dividing wall. When I did that: I could assign one side as the 8' section and the other side as the 10' section and the roof/framing generated properly However, the cabin is intended to have an open interior with continuous vaulted ceilings from the 8' side to the 10' side. As soon as I remove that dividing wall and rebuild framing/roof: the high wall extends above and past the roof plane, the wall heights become incorrect, one stud shows approximately 121 13/16", and the overall roof/wall intersection looks wrong. At this point, I suspect the issue is probably related to: Roof baseline settings Wall definitions Ceiling/roof relationships Room definitions Attic wall generation Or how Chief calculates automatic roof generation in open vaulted spaces rather than the roof geometry itself being impossible. Could someone explain: The proper way to set up a simple open vaulted 8' to 10' shed roof in Chief Architect Whether I should be adjusting baseline height instead of wall height Why the high wall is extending past the roof plane Why the roof behaves correctly with a dividing wall but breaks once the space becomes open Whether my understanding of the roof math/framing logic is correct I would really appreciate any explanations, corrections, or guidance. I am still learning and trying to better understand both framing concepts and the software itself. Software/PC specs: Chief Architect Premier X17 (latest version) Windows NVIDIA GTX 5050 8GB 16GB RAM Intel i5 2.20GHz I will update this with plans/screenshots shortly as I am currently posting from a mobile device. Thank you very much for your time. please help lol.zip

You have the default floor as 5-1/2". If you click the edit button, you should be able to change it to a 4" thickness, all concrete slab. Then just check that your ceiling heights are what they should be

That is opening "room specifications" for the basement. I checked defaults as well and they seem to be in line with what I want. Even the section view shows the floor detail correctly but the height will not adjust as I want it. 2022 is older and has some problems but since they took away the perpetual licensing for the new updates I refuse to pay for a subscription based product.

the dialogue you show.... what is it for? what level? I would go into the defaults and set each level... oh wait you are using 2022.... not sure what it has, as it has been a long time for me

I am having a weird issue with my concrete slab in the basement. There is a 5 1/2" wood/insulation/concrete floor that is floating above my footing. How do I change this to a regular concrete slab? Every time I adjust the floor height it shifts the footing as well. Thanks in advance.

I am new to this software and need to design a log cabin with a high pitch roof that extends to the ground. Can someone help me on this? I have no idea where to start with building the roof so that each floor decreases in size with the roof pitch. Please help! I have attached the picture of the house, it has a full basement below.

yes Program will join a cabinet to anything that is 3" or less away. So you can space cabinets apart and it will add the filler

11 years ago was this thread and the software has changed drastically since then.

Hmmm. my mistake. Thanks for clarifying. I am finding other resources, keep up the good work.

All of the Home Designer videos are human made and narrated by employees of the company. homedesignersoftware.com/videos/

Anyone have access to instructional videos (or other) created by humans? Wow it must be 2026 for a question like that. One of my "buying decisions" was the wealth of instructional videos available from Chief Architect. But so far the ones I have selected all have unlistenable robot voices with weird inflections and an unnatural delivery that I simply find 1) stressful to listen to, and 2) very hard to follow/understand. It's like half of my brain is just trying to relate what I am hearing to what is normally considered "language". That leaves half a brain to actually receive and process the intended meaning. Plus the distracting emotions of anger/resentment at having to endure this folly. So, I am looking for alternatives, because I need to understand all those tiny icons and nuanced controls and get this garage built! Thanks all!

Appears to create a filler when I manually move a cabinet a couple inches away from the wall. Is this the correct placement approach?

I'm having trouble determining if my cabinet placement is accurate or if I need to manually enter a 2" filler near walls. Would I use the 'partition' for this? I'm using frameless eurostyle fronts.

The results are in! Congratulations to our 3 winners in the Residential Design Contest. 1st Place – Doug Forbes of D. Forbes Design 2nd Place – Geny Miron & Megan Phanenhour of DH Designs 3rd Place – John Bzdel View all of the great submissions: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1372445371586276&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.

Because, as you said, they seem to be purposefully ignoring 2025 and earlier customers in order to gather more rental customers. And if they happen to answer you with something about compatibility issues, I would argue that is BS.

catalogs used to be available to several versions of the home designer series. For example a catalog for 2025 also had downloads for 2024 or 2023 etc. No longer is this happening. All the catalogs are now just available for the subscription versions and all the previous versions are cut out. I find this very wrong for all the customers who have supported your software and are now pretty much forgotten. Why can't catalogs still be available to previous versions as they had always been in the past.

I cannot open your plan as I do not have HD 2026 nor will I get it. from screen shots. Looks like you need to just REBUILD framing and let software delete old framing and make new based on roof. In roof settings lock on PITCH. Let it figure the rest as pitch is what you want. The room settings will dictate everything else. Also better to set all these settings in the default settings for the plan. Then you only tweak those things that are different from the norm. Save as HD2025 and maybe I can play with it.

plans .zip

I understand and I apologize for not including screenshots/plans initially I was on mobile and didnt have a file. I’ll attach them to this reply so the issue is easier to see. Right now, all room ceiling heights are set to: 96" finished ceiling 94 1/2" rough ceiling I’ll also try your suggested setup and report back with the results to see if it resolves the roof/wall issue. And yes, the 16' dimension is outside-to-outside overall. For the wall height, accuracy between the plans and the actual build is important to me because the finished high wall will be exactly 10'. The framing plan is based around using 114 5/8" studs combined with 4 1/2" of plate material to achieve a true 10' wall height. Normally I would agree about avoiding cutting every stud, but in this case I’ll likely be trimming them anyway. The “stud grade” material available from our local lumber yards has been inconsistent, and I’ve seen as much as 1/4" variance between pieces. I’d rather take the extra time to cut them uniformly and avoid ceiling inconsistencies later on. 809 showing bad roof.pdf 809 Telegraph Floor plan view.pdf 809 Telegraph render back.pdf 809 Telegraph render front.pdf