AirstreamJake

Eric - our place is in the 'piney woods' area of east Texas. Specifically, we are in far northeast Texas, not too far from Texarkana. The land here is not the desert that most people visualize when they think 'Texas' - that part of Texas is in the western half of the state where no one lives. We're in a beautiful area and have about 60 acres. 1/2 is heavily forested with roads and trails, the other half is improved grass meadows that are baled for hay. We've been living in a 2003 Airstream travel trailer that we completely remodeled and which is located in a building that we constructed. The building sits about 3' from the water and also includes a full bathroom. Further pictures attached below to give you the 'lay of the land'. In the final picture, the RV building is to the left and the new homesite with partially-constructed foundation is straight ahead, on the other side of the canoe.

Eric (Solver) - I did as you suggested on my plan, and viola! Couldn't do this without you. Thanks again. My wife and I are building this with just the two of us as labor. I thought you might like to see a few pictures of progress thus far (attachments below). Work now halted for the summer but will resume in the fall. In the meantime, working on finalizing plan details above the foundation level. Archive.zip

Perfect! That's exactly what I wanted. I'll give it a try and, hopefully, will get the same result. Thanks again for all your help.

Okay Solver, I should have thought of the zip file. It is attached below. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. 1229 SF - 2018-07-17 - Floor Joists - Base Plan.plan.zip

Hello, I am working on a plan which has both front and back screened rooms (not decks). For the screened rooms, I need the floor joists running east-west since those rooms will have no subfloor but will only use deck boards. For the remainder of the house, I need the floor joists to run north-south. So, there are three separate areas where joist direction changes. I have tried doing this using bearing lines and the joist direction tool, but as you can see in the attachments, the tool apparently can't handle three areas and so is getting confused and running the joists east-west in the front and back portions of the house (which should be north south). Does anyone know of a work-around for this? I could probably manually draw the joists in the erroneous sections, but I hate to turn off auto framing if I can avoid it. Sorry I can't attach the plan file itself. Although it's a small home, the plan size of 29 MB exceed the max size of 25. Would be nice if they would increase that max size ... The PDF and .dxf files I was able to attach will hopefully give you the general idea. As an aside, My beams are closely spaced, so I'm only planning on using 2 x 8 joists which will bear on those beams. Does anyone see or have experience with using smaller floor joists such as this, or should I bite the bullet and go with 2 x 10? Load calculations seem to be fine with the short spans for 2 x 8. As always, thanks to all you experts out there that have been so helpful to me and to others. 1229 SF - 2018-07-17 - Floor Joists - Base Plan.pdf 1229 SF - 2018-07-17 - Floor Joists - Base Plan.dxf

Eric, I'd post the plan file, except I have extremely poor internet here on the farm and my plan file is so large that I think it exceeds the maximum size for attachments. Below are two images. I'm building on soft clay, and the interlocked continuous footers allow the house to 'float' as a unit rather than using individual 'spot' footers. We considered slab-on-grade, by far the most common type nowadays in Texas because it is easy and quick for the builder, but my wife and I both prefer the look of a 'raised floor' foundation. And, I like the easy accessibility of plumbing and other utilities. The foundation plan obviously isn't complete since three of the horizontal footers are still lacking as are the two vertical perimeter footings. Also, I have not yet added the piers themselves. Our first step is to pour the footers, and we hope to do the trenching next week, but I need to get exact measurements for spacing - and that's tough to do since I can't get the footers to 'snap' to the CAD lines.

Hi Eric, See the image below. I am currently laying out the footers for my home plan. What I've done is to create a stem wall foundation, outlined the foundation 'footprint' with CAD lines, and then deleted the stem walls. I'm now inserting the continuous footers on which the CMU piers will sit. I've drawn the footers as a slab, and am now trying to slide the sized footers into the foundation outline such that they meet up exactly with the outline. For some reason, the slab footers won't snap to the CAD lines which represent the perimeter of the foundation. Open to any and all suggestions. I'll have six rows of footers, all tied into a footer which will run around the perimeter. The result will be a 'grid' of footers upon which the piers will sit. 1229 SF - 2018-05-03 - Foundation with Continuous Footers.dxf

Hello, I've searched the forum and tried the reference manual, but cannot get object snaps to work when I try to snap a concrete slab to a polyline or to a single CAD line that represents the outline of my foundation. I can get the two aligned fairly closely by manually moving the slab, but can't get it 'spot on' because it won't snap to the polyline or to a CAD line even though I have all snap behaviors on in 'Snap Settings' (under 'Edit').

Eric - thanks for walking me through this. I completed adding the pier foundation to my plan today, just in time for the concrete guy to provide an estimate tomorrow. You are correct, the sill plate is usually not continuous but, for purposes of my plan, I've left it there for now while working on the piers. To help others out in the future, I've attached a 3D image of my house plan on CMU piers. I still need to add the beams between the sill plates and the floor joists, but that's a job for another day. 1229 SF - House Plan on Piers.stl

Hi Eric - all of this was extremely helpful, and I literally couldn't have done it without your input. I've now got the sample house sitting properly on the piers and with the newly-created sill plate inserted between the piers and joists (see attached plan - mainly for future readers of this post). Your suggestion to turn on the Floor Layer display also fixed the air gap that I was seeing between the wall base plate and the floor joists. It's a learning process, but I think I've now got what I need to start applying this to my actual house plan. I only have two remaining problems, minor and I can work around if needed: (1). Since my piers and footers are an architectural block, I can't get the piers themselves to snap to the CAD lines outlining the foundation. Instead, it snaps to the widest part of the architectural block; i.e., the footers, and (2). Since my sill plate is really a transformed floor joist, the program still identifies it as a floor joist and not as a sill plate. No big deal, but is there a way to predesignate it such that the program realizes it's really a sill plate? Thanks for getting me to the point that I can add in my piers on my plan. I've got a concrete guy coming out tomorrow to give me a quote so I can get the foundation underway, and I was getting concerned that I wouldn't be ready for him! House on Piers.plan

Okay, that worked. However, I expected that the lowest framing member would be the sill plate; however, it appears the sill plate is missing and so the lowest framing member is the rim joist. How do I get a sill plate in there if it didn't automatically generate? Also, there is a gap (see plan) between the wall base plate and the floor joists (see attached plan). Is that just how the program displays things in framing view, or is there a true gap there? Is the gap caused by the missing sill plate? House on Piers.plan

Eric, thanks for once again getting me over the hump. I had tried using a slab-type foundation, then deleting the slab, but that of course was not the right approach (which, in hindsight, is obvious). Your suggestion was spot on. I'm now trying to get the pillar height correct (as can be seen on the plan below), but I've looked through all the options on the menu and can't seem to find the height of the floor to which the pillars need to reach. I know it's got to be a simple thing to do, but I've looked everywhere and can't find what I need. House on Piers.plan

Attached below is my best shot thus far at getting the house to sit on CMU piers, as I desire. However, as you can see, there is no framed platform (sill plate, floor joists, rim joists) for the first floor. Can anyone give me any ideas on where to go from here? House on Piers.plan

Solver, I am working on such a plan now, and I will post it as soon as I have worked through to my best solution. A comment though, admittedly made out of frustration. Having spent $600 for design software that is marketed to non-professionals (i.e., I didn't purchase from their more advanced software line), it is disappointing to say the least to find that the software can't readily and easily handle one of the most common foundation types in the South. Homes have been built in the way I describe here for hundreds of years, and still today, the 'wooden beams on concrete block piers' are probably the most common foundation type other than slab (in the south anyway, where we don't have basements). Why in the world could this type of foundation not be automatically generated, without each new Home Designer user having to reinvent the wheel? Just venting.

Hello, I am trying to create a foundation for my home that will consist of perimeter and interior CMU (block) piers. This is a extremely common type of foundation in the south, but one which does not seem to be easily accommodated in Home Designer (Pro version, in my case). It is not one of the three foundation types among which one must choose in the Default Options panel. See the one-page 'Raised Floor Foundation Guide' which I've attached below for pictures of the structure of the foundation I am trying to create. On my home, the perimeter CMU piers will rest upon either a continuous concrete grade beam or on concrete spot footings (see pictures in attachment). On top of each CMU block pier will be a perimeter beam (girder) consisting of two 1-3/4" x 11-7/8" LVL. On top of the girder will rest the floor platform (rim board and I-beam joists, etc). The floor joists will be supported in the interior of the structure by LVL girders resting on CMU piers on spot footings. Does anyone have any direction for me as to how I can get started in producing this type of foundation plan in Home Designer? Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Raised Floor Foundation Guide.pdf

Hi Solver - I am going to start a new post titled 'Perimeter Masonry Pier on Grade Beam' that will both describe and show pictures of the type of foundation I am trying to create.

Okay, I've read through topics such as this one: And yet, I am still left wondering ... why must drawing a simple pier and beam foundation plan in Home Designer be so difficult? All I want is the basic foundation on CMU block and footers - not a beach house on round piers, and no stem walls. I can copy the basic slabs that are given in the above article, and create architectural blocks which combine the two slab types, but I cannot figure out how to adjust the dimensions of a slab once it is drawn; i.e., how to change a 24"W x 24D pad to a 20"W x 20"D pad. Simple dimensional changes such as this don't seem to be an option under the slab tool. Am I missing something somewhere? Also, how do I change the height of the piers so that they exactly touch the bottoms of the LVL beams which they will be supporting. Is there any easy way to do that?

Hello Solver, Thanks again for your help. I had looked under the layer set for the framing perspective overview, and the layer called 'foundation' was checked - so I was puzzled as to why the foundation walls weren't showing. After reading your note, I went line-by-line through the layer set, and noticed there was an option to display 'walls, foundation'. I checked that option, and of course, it fixed my problem. Thanks!

In training video '02249 Framing', when the instructor creates a perspective framing overview, the resulting overview displays both the plan's framing and the foundation (stem wall) on which that framing sits. However, when I create a perspective framing overview, the foundation stem walls are not showing, and so it looks like my framing is hanging in thin air. What am I doing wrong? How do I get the concrete stem wall foundation to show on my Perspective Framing Overview?

Hello, Adding the air barrier to my porch wall definitions as suggested by Solver (Eric?) and realigning the walls (as suggested by Jo_Ann) did the trick as far as deleting the unwanted roof plane. However, I am still generating warning flags on the foundation (see attachment #1) at the sites (4) where the porch walls meet up with the house walls. I can temporarily remove these flags by (a) deleting the foundation, and (b) rebuilding the foundation. Doing so removes the foundation flags, but on the foundation schematic, if you look closely, you can see there is a slight indentation of the stem wall outline at the site of the four junctions (see attachment #2). If I examine the wall junctions up-close on the floor plan view, a few of the junctions have the siding layer sandwiched between the porch wall and the house wall junction (see attachment #3). This obviously is not what I want to happen. And, when I close the plan and re-open it again, the foundation flags reappear! Any thoughts would be much appreciated. 1229 SF - #1 Foundation Errors.dxf 1229 SF - #2 Foundation Plan.dxf 1229 SF - #3 Detail of Small Screened Porch.dxf

Okay, thanks again, Solver. I'll try adding the air gap that you suggest as an exterior layer to the wall. Keeping my fingers crossed that it works! Will let you know. I do greatly appreciate all the work that you do on this forum. Stephan

Hi Solver, This is a new house that we will build on our farm. I am trying to duplicate the look of the porches on several other buildings that we have here. All have treated lumber visible, with the screens being 4' from center to center of the supporting studs. The roofs are supported on double top plates that are reinforced by a 4 x 6 that sits horizontally on cripple studs in each screened section. So, each 'post' between each set of screens consists of a full-length stud in the center that has a cripple stud on each side, and on top of the cripple stud rests the 4 x 6 and the two top plates. I couldn't figure out how to do this in Home Designer, so I basically replicated the look of the 4 x 6's at the top using 2 x 4's. The porches will be at the same level of the house and will rest on the same perimeter beam and on interior supporting posts. It will basically be a screened room but of different construction from the remainder of the house in that the framing will be as described above and the flooring will be treated decking. I did look at the screened porch video in the Home Designer video training series but couldn't figure out how to replicate the look doing it that way. I am, however, open to any and all suggestions. Does this help? P.S. I've attached a few pictures which I hope will clarify my description above. And, just to clarify, although these pictures are in a building with a slab foundation, in my new home it will be a pier-and-beam construction with a perimeter stem wall.

Hi David, I've had a recurring problem with the basement wall warning indicators, as you mentioned. I don't know how to delete these indicators as you did. I can temporarily get rid of the warning indicators by deleting the foundation and rebuilding it, but they inevitably will reoccur at some future point. Did you notice that the warning indicators are at the exact location where the exterior walls of the porches meet with the walls of the house itself? That is why I thought maybe there was a problem with wall alignment or wall junctions in those locations. If so, I haven't been able to find what the problem is. My suspicion is that, for some reason, the program doesn't think the porches are attached properly to the main house, and so it wants to build roof planes over the interior porch walls because it mistakenly thinks that they are exterior walls. I did just try deleting the foundation and rebuilding it. There are currently no warning flags on the foundation (although if history repeats itself, they will reappear) but, when I go to perspective view, the unwanted roof plane is still there! Frustrating! I appreciate your help and insights in this. If anything further thoughts occur as to what the cause of the problem is, I would sure like to hear back from you! Stephan

Hi DavidJPotter - I have previously done as you suggest, and it does work - but only until I Rebuild Roof Planes, at which time the unwanted roof planes reappear. I'm thinking that, for some reason, the program is not recognizing the interior porch walls (which, even though interior, are covered with siding) as being interior - but instead thinks that they are exterior walls and therefore tries to build a roof plane over them. Does that make sense? I thought that maybe the walls on the porches are not connecting properly with the walls on the house. If that is the case, then I can't find the bad connections. I have had Auto Build Framing turned on. I have not had Auto Rebuild Roofs turned on. Thanks for your help. Any further suggestions would be appreciated. I'm just wandering if there is some type of wall-connection problem (as yet undiscovered by me) that is causing these unwanted roof planes to be generated.

At Solver's suggestion, I am posting my plan file below. The problem roof planes are those with the red metal roofing. Thanks in advance for any help that anyone can provide. I am posting the entire plan, which barely squeaks by the 25 MB limit on attachments, because I don't know how to post only specific images from the plan. 1229_SF_-_**Plan_01_-_2018-04-03.plan