MississippiMims

Thanks Keith. I checked out your bonus catalogues and I need one for a 9/12 pitch. I also played with the sloped soffit but two sides will always be perpendicular to the floor so that one wont work either. Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm trying to model an open gable truss. I used to do this by building a custom backsplash and moving it to the location I wanted. I just upgraded to Pro2024 and it appears this version will not let me move the backsplash away from a wall. I also tried a soffit but I can't rotate a soffit. Any suggestions?

Gary: The plan cleaned up nicely and I can now add porches without the dormers causing issues. Thank you. Eric: Once again, great information. I drew a quick practice plan to work with manual dormers after your first video. Doing dormers manually is much easier. I had so much trouble getting auto dormers to work initially until I figured out that placing them in the attic seemed to solve most of the issues. Auto dormers worked well unless they touched the front wall as these do. Thank you.

Outstanding information. I will spend some time learning to build dormers manually. I agree this is an easy roof to build manually but I didn't have the confidence in working with dormers manually to attempt it. I'm fixing to attempt the changes on HDP21. I'll update when I get it cleaned up. Thank you both for your generous time.

Thanks Gary. I also tried the "default wall top" and you are correct, it does fix the gable walls. But as soon as I make any changes, such as adding the porches, the walls revert back to protruding through the roof again. I don't know what's up with it leaving the wall short at the bottom. When you pull the wall down, it moves the window. Then when you try to move the window back to the correct position, it leaves an opening in the wall below the window. I think all of these issues stem from how the dormers where set up. I had to explode them to solve another roof issue I had with the main roof so I can't go back now. Dormers are so frustrating. I wish there was a "rendering" feature that would automatically clean up some of these issues. Thanks for your time.

I have tried every setting I can find and have outworked my patience today. Can anyone tell me why my dormer walls are protruding through the roof? Genesis.plan

Where did you find this screen door? I have searched the library and haven't located one and haven't found a panel door that allows me to change the panel material to screen.

I attached the plan. All of the living area floor heights are set at 0". I want the porches lowered 3.5" which is standard construction. David, I guess the porches would be the exception rooms you mentioned. The two larger porches worked like they were supposed to. I just can't figure out why the interior hallway and the side porch/stoop keep the same floor setting. Hicks 2.plan

I'm having an issue with a small side porch. In my room settings, I have the porch floors set at -3.5". Two of my porches worked fine, but this side porch for some reason also drops the hallway floor to -3.5. When I click on the hallway room and reset my floor to 0", it automatically brings the porch back up to 0". What would cause them not to work independently?

Sorry, I jumped the gun. All I had to do was set the stem wall top to -3 1/2" in the absolute heights section. Thanks anyway.

Can someone point me to a tutorial on how to lower my porch slabs 3 1/2" below the house slab. I have searched Eric's and David's youtube pages and don't see this specific question. I know this has to be simple but I have been unsuccessful so far. I have used the room definition menu and tried changing the floor to -3 /2" but it automatically adds a 3 1/2" stem wall. When I try to lower the stem wall in the relative heights section, it automatically sets the floor back to zero.

I knew I was missing something. Exploding the dormer is the ticket. Thanks

I'm sure I'm missing something simple but I'm having trouble changing the roof material for dormers. Any ideas?

I discovered that if you explode the dormer, you can break the edge of the roof plane and pull it around the dormer without the dormer disappearing. Thanks for the help.

It has the skylight tool which makes a hole in the roof but it has two issues. 1. It wont carry the hole to the edge of the roof. 2. It also makes the dormer disappear.

I already have the walls worked out. I just need to split the roof in front of the two dormers shown below.

Eric posted this video (below) on his YouTube channel that shows exactly what I want to do but I can't find the "subtract" tool in HDpro21. How can this be accomplished with the tools available in my version?

Thanks for the try Keith.

Thanks Eric. Does Chief Architect have more layer control so that I can have text on different layers as well as CAD lines on different layers?

Keith, were you able to make the "blank" line style work? When I tried it would not go away. Eric, would you place a mask on the layout sheet or is this something that's available for the plan?

I had tried changing the fill in the wall options. The only problem with turning off the invisible walls layer in the Display Options is I still need the invisible walls for the porches to show up in the floorplan. I'm trying to isolate this particular invisible wall.

Anybody know how to make an invisible wall that wont show up in the floorplan? I cant get rid of the outline of the wall and this has been confusing for some framers.

Is there any way to display a portion of stairs in a floorplan view? I would like the door below the stairs to display in the floorplan and have half of the stairs, approximately where the blue line is in the attached image.

Thanks David. The answer to this problem for others having trouble locating it is under the foundation defaults. Select "Walls with footings" and under where you specify the thickness of the slab, check the box that says "slab at top of stem wall".

Raised slabs are becoming more popular in my area. We've built several houses this way recently by building a 16"-24" CMU wall on a footing, backfilling with compacted dirt, and pouring a slab on top. Any suggestions on how to model this?