solver

Check your Layer Display Options for Space Planning Boxes. You should be able to turn them back on.

Walls don't control ceiling height, ceiling height, and the roof control walls. What is right? I'm not even sure where the porch is. I subtracted 12" from the ceiling height and auto built the roof -- did I guess correctly? Have you upgraded to Pro?

You can't really delete a floor structure. I've not looked at the plan, but imagine you have walls that are not connected together forming a room, or one or more walls is marked No Room Definition. Check those two things and post back if you still have an issue.

The program does not know what a helical pier is. What are you trying to do?

24 hours is 1 day, and this is Monday, so support is working on things submitted from Friday evening until today. They normally respond within one to two days. There are 20,000 registered users on ChiefTalk, and over 14,000 here on HomeTalk. Imagine the workload if just a small fraction of these people contacted support. When you bought Home Designer, you did not buy help from support -- they are there for bug reports. Support is this forum -- user to user. I pay extra every year for enhanced support for Chief Premier, but it's not for tutoring. My advice is to post your questions/issues here.

The "better solution" is called Chief Architect Premier.

They never are, unfortunately. New Home Designer versions usually arrive April/May I believe.

You want to fill in with walls where I show the red outlines? Turn off the railings, use shapes as I suggested above to fill in. So it looks something like this.

Like this?

Depends on the desk, and you.

To use auto built roofs, you need a 2nd floor with a short ceiling height. The 2nd floor can be open below if you want. After the roof is correct you can turn off auto build and make changes as needed without the roof changing. Or, you can do this with a single floor. Place a divider wall, raise the ceiling height.

Very easy to do using manual roofs. Draw your 2 roof planes. Select one, change its pitch and baseline height. Join them.

Ceiling heights control the default position of the low side of a roof plane. They have nothing to do with the high side. Draw a 1 room structure. Draw a manual (shed) roof plane. The wall under the high part of the roof will extend up to the roof plane. If you do not want a ceiling, then turn of the ceiling in the room.

Looks like the best option to me and should have no problems with code. Check handrail specifics in the code too. Some places want to see a continuous handrail.

A Salt Box roof is different from a Shed Roof, so maybe a sketch or image of what you are trying to do would be helpful. Roofs generally control wall height -- that is, a wall wants to reach up until it finds a roof.

Draw your new wall, open it and change it to whatever type is desired.

I agree, but the program works as it does, so if you want winders ...

You will need to use individual landings for the steps.

I agree with Jo Ann, that if you have, or plan a 2nd floor, it needs to be part of the model.

Draw them from the porch to the ground. Right click and drag, instead of left click and drag.

Why are you doing this? Planning a remodel, just having fun? While the software should be able to do this -- it's not that complex, and you seem to have your settings correct, I'm guessing it's not going to be so easy. I could manually fix the roof in just a few minutes, but then you could never change it. You could upgrade to Pro -- you only pay the difference in price, or you could rent Pro at $50/month. Or someone else might find a way to make it work in Suite.

There are articles in the Knowledge Base, as well as videos you will find helpful. Here is a thread giving some good info on printing to a larger paper size. I'd call the Architect and ask about file formats. They will likely redraw anyway, but may find some value in what you have done.

Never seen a 128MB plan file -- nothing even close. Try drawing a new plan that exhibits the behavior and post it. Make a video of yourself working on the plan. Try stripping out everything unnecessary in the plan -- cars, furniture etc and getting it down to a manageable size.

None of the Chief Architect/Home Designer products handle that situation. You need a workaround, and yours is one of several that can be used. You mentioned using a shape for the upper part, and I would recommend a soffit as David suggested. Soffits come in with the default drywall (wall) color, and will accept moldings. Here are 2 threads I posted on over at ChiefTalk. Both contain info you might find helpful. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/16879-stairs-with-drywall-handrails-with-cutouts-in-the-walls/ https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/16668-doorway-flooring-issue/

Glad you found the video helpful. I did not pay much attention to your plan when doing the video, but took a closer look this morning. I'm guessing this is something you are planning to build, so I'll suggest reviewing it with a designer. Here is one suggestion that you might find improves the stairs. You have room for an L shaped stair, and could make use of the area under it for storage. Moving the front door to the left gives you a bit of an entry space, and space for 2 windows to the right. I also noticed that much of the plan has been drawn wrong, so I suggest redrawing. All your 1st floor, floor heights are -8", when they are typically 0", for example. If you are building slab on grade, the out of box defaults should work. Start by setting all your defaults. Ceiling heights and other structural dimensions. Also materials -- when I drew new roof planes they came in with shingles instead of metal, for example. When looking at the Structure panel, for most rooms, you should be using default values.