All Activity

dormer example.plan

Maybe this will help.

I'm not married to auto roof, I've done a couple manual planes in my experimenting. Making the dormer on the back of Cape is giving me the most headaches. The problem I'm having is I don't know how to make exterior walls of different heights. The 2nd floor is 1.5" tall @ 10.5/12 pitch under the small return eave, but then 93" tall @ 6/12 pitch under the dormer eave. Maybe you might be able to help me break it down. I attached a pic of a basic cape with a shed dormer, where the Cape roof eave does not cross under the dormer. If I can get that modeled, I can fumble my way through the various additions and bump outs.

I'm guessing when you mention "splitting walls", you are asking about the "wall break" tool. Read up on that. It would be beneficial for you to learn how to use the manual roof planes...BUT...this project can be done using the auto build roof function.

Thanks, I've got the 2D and 3D side by side but I really need guidance on splitting walls or some other approach. I'm about 40 hours into tutorial videos, and am now at the point that I'm out of things to experiment with. I'm Thomas Edison with the 300 ways not to make a light bulb...

idrivea911, Home Designer has a steep learning curve. and you have chosen a complicated roof design. The video tutorials, knowledge base articles, and reference manual..are there for a reason. T I P: Do a full perspective view of the plan, then vertically tile the view. In the 3d window, choose rendering technique VECTOR, and turn OFF patterns and color. When you change a setting, the change is easy to see in the 3d view. Experiment and practice, to gain success.

Thanks. It came up

it will show up when you are in the floor plan and on second floor. IF does not show up Go into default settings. PLan settings. CLick show Living Area Label.

look at what you have selected for Post and beam part. Maybe play with those settings.

to adjust roof pitch. Go to 2d floor plan. Select wall where the roof plane starts in the top plate ( bottom of slope) OPen up the edit screen for this wall. Go to structure tab. Adjust roof pitch to what ever you want. DO this for all walls that do not have the default roof pitch IF wall is a gable end then select gable. And as always for me.. After auto roofs is done I may have to adjust the roof planes it generates to what I want.

I'm new to Chief Architect/Home Designer, coming from years of product design in solidworks. I was able to make my 1st floor and 2nd floor plans, but I can't figure out how to get the proper roof lines. The house is a cape at its core. But it has a couple of extensions and dormers that I can't figure out how to contend with. The attached pics are some plans a designer made in Revit from when we were planning an extension (I did a bit of cut/pasting to cover the extension). I'm trying to put together an As-Built in Home Designer so I can play around with other changes I might make to the floor plan. I also attached a screenshot of what the roof looks like in HD with some of the issues I'm trying to fix. I have watched videos about "ignore top floor" where I treat the 2nd floor like an attic, and raise the 1st floor roof ~10". That's what's shown in the screenshot. That looks better than what I had in my 1st run. But I still can't get the roof lines to split. And I can't figure out how to get half the house at 10.5/12 and half at 6/12 pitch. When I make the change in the wall properties, the ridge line shifts towards the front of the house since it still starts both slopes at the 10" above Floor 1 ceiling. Also, I don't know where HD stores my files so I haven't been able to share. Hello there is appreciated as well.

Thank you for the tip- I tried it and it did not remove the pieces. When I open the rail specification, and modified to 'balloon through ceiling' the pieces got smaller. So my thought is that it has someting to do with the rail specification...?

anybody??

look like "attic wall" parts from railing. hard to say but turn off auto generate attic walls in default settings for walls. then delete them. if that does not work might need your plan. how did you make loft? 2nd floor right?

Hello, I have exhausted my resources in solving this problem. There are objects on the ceiling associated with the rail of the loft. See picture. Please help. Thanks!

Well the white planes are the ceiling below and the gap between this whit surface and bottom of 2nd walls is where Floor structure would be placed. Joists and plywood or such. You may have them turned off. Also you may be looking at this in 3d while on the 1st floor. See what level you are at.

Thank you for the quick reply and pointing me in the right direction. I'll learn how to do that and give it a try. I appreciate your help. Thanks!

Use a terrain hole around the foundation wall around the stairs

Hi, I'm brand new and assume I am missing something obvious :). Thank you in advance for any help. I am using Home Designer 2026, Build 27.3.2.5 for MAC ARM, Dec 10, 2025 On floor 1: I created a porch room external to the main house. It has a foundation, invisible walls and now roof/ceiling. On floor 0: I created stairs going from level 0 to level 1. This worked fine and you can see them in the attachment. I added landing at the bottom and top of the stairs. They match the door and the present landing. I then used the auto create stairwell between the two floors. Everything appears to work fine except the terrain is overdrawing on floor 1. When you look up from the bottom of the stairs you can confirm the stairwell is open. I tired changing the terrain, but this did not help. One attempt flattened all the stairs and I started over. The terrain is -2" below floor 1 which says it is at "0". Screen shots are attached. Again, any help is appreciated and thank you in advance for your time.

The pictures do nothing. Try posting your plan and maybe someone will look at it.

Yes, neither no locate or no room definition are checked. Here are two more pics. The first shows the gap when second floor doesn't extend over the first. The second pic shows the front which looks fine.

Wall Specification>General>Options It also looks like your walls are not aligned with the walls below? Spend some time with the reference manual

I'm not sure where "no room definition" would be. But here is another example. I just drew four exterior walls for my second floor as show below. And all second floor walls show the siding hanging below the wall as shown in the second picture. The third picture shows a gap between the first floor wall and the second floor. Thanks for your help!

Looks like the room is not defined? Make sure all of the perimeter walls are not marked as "no room definition" and "no locate"

I am using Home Designer Pro 2024. The picture below shows my second floor walls. They do not come all the way down to the floor. The siding extends beyond the bottom of the wall (see the second picture). I have checked "stop at floor below" What else can I do to get my walls to sit flush against the floor?