solver

Which direction will you be extending the garage?

and home-designer-pro-2015-users-guide.zip

Here are the 3 documents I have for pro 2015. home-designer-pro-2015-users-guide-roof-tutorial.zip home-designer-pro-2015-reference-manual.zip

Really need more info. It would be helpful if you drew in interior walls, and let us know if there is a 2nd floor. What does the rear look like? Do you have the roof pitch, room heights etc set correctly in your plan? What does the inside look like? Are there spaces with high ceilings? All the details make a difference. I did this by adding a 2nd floor, and it took far more time than I imagined.

Do you have a copy of the Reference Manual? It has your answer. If not, I can upload one.

Randy, The Chief Architect forum is ChiefTalk. You might want to post over there. AutoCAD is CAD software from Autodesk -- nothing to do with Chief Architect. Reading your post, I might think you are 13 and looking for your first job. Consider doing a bit of research on how to market yourself. You may be the best Chief user there is, but no one is going to reply to a post like you have written above. Best wishes on your job search.

Like Dave said, the plans should still be there. If not, check (on Windows) Documents\Home Designer Pro 2016 Data\Archives for saved copies.

You might check David Potters YouTube videos. I know he did one on getting a plat into Home Designer. I believe he traced over a scanned copy.

How do you "zoom all the way out"? That is, what action are you doing that causes the problem? I don't believe there is a way to constrain the drawing size. My projects are normally small, 500 sq ft or less, and using the mouse to wheel in and out has always worked for me.

Materials List From Room works for me using Pro. You might try contacting tech support.

Check out the buttons on the far right of the screen. Push the 5th one from the top. Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Could you be more specific about what you need that you are not getting?

I had the exact same frustrating experience when learning the program. The roof break tool is located in the Edit Toolbar. I usually use the keyboard commands, Q to draw a new roof plane, 2 to join roof planes, and 3 to break.

Chief Architect products, including the Home Designer titles do not play well with others. You can export as a DXF -- have you tried that? I'd suggest a single copy of Premier if all you need is the ray tracing. Use and learn Pro, have Premier available for as needed use. You will usually get special upgrade pricing when the next version of the Chief products -- normally in the first quarter, and they will give you a credit for Pro. You might ask over at ChiefTalk too, where you will find users familiar with the products in question.

This forum is for users of the Home Designer software, not a general forum on design issues. That said, you should talk to a builder/remodeler, and a designer, if you are not clear about what you want to do.

This is a fairly common request/problem. The software design makes this more complicated than it should be. You can model this by adding a 2nd floor. Think of everything up to the 8' level as floor 1, and everything above as floor 2. Use a room divider to outline the rooms below, and make the rest of the 2nd floor open below.

When you select a door or window, you get temporary dimensions. Mouse over the dimensions and you will see the cursor will change to a hand on some of them. When that happens, clicking the dimension will allow you to change it. Have you reviewed the Knowledge Base articles, and the Help within the program? Searching here will also find threads on dimensions. You can use Auto Interior Dimensions to fully dimension the plan.

Electrical items need a wall to attach to. I have a user defined wall that is single 1/16" layer of air. Set it to No Room Definition, No Locate, Invisible. Place where you want your sconce, then place the sconce.

You can resize in plan and camera views. I would try a simple shape, see how it responds in your plan. I've only done one thing with SketchUp, so I am no expert.

Trim gets created in SketchUp then imported into Home Designer. Check 3D Warehouse, you may find something that works, or something to start from.

You can make the room a Deck, changing the settings for the floor structure etc as needed. Or you can complete your design, and just delete the foundation walls you don't want.

Turn off auto rebuild foundation. Put a roof on it.

Post some images of the type of trim, and where it will be placed to help us out.

That's normal. Bothered me at first too, but I became used to it. I have seen many much worse than that. It depends on how/where your camera is set up.

Could you post a plan with the custom material?