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I am half way through a drawing for an extension onto an existing house. At one time I auto generated the first floor from the basement (backwards I know but the basement was already built and not permitted). Any way I am trying to delete the first floor over the existing foundation and keep running into the warning message seen on the screenshot. I don't want to deleted the first floor and start from scratch as that will deleted the first floor of the existing house and I don't want to do that. How can I get around this and start afresh with the first floor of the extension? Thanks Alan

Eric Sorry to be so obtuse but what do you mean when you say "Drawing each wall using the same wall type handle from the previous wall"? I have the wall type handles turned on an my default wall set as brick and block foundation. Thanks Alan Never mind -- grab that handle and draw the next wall -- sweet. Thanks Eric No we will get back to the roof eventually. Alan

I did change the default wall type as suggested but forgot the Same wall type Handle. I'll go back and change that. I'm drawing the basement first because it already exists and was never permitted so I need to start from somewhere. I understand what you are saying about starting the second wall on top of the first which than either lengthens or shortens it. If I turn on the Same wall type Handle, will that stop this from happening? If not then how? Thanks Alan Edit Checked the Same wall type handle box in Preferences. Tried to draw those five walls and it is absolutely impossible to get the lengths I need. Every time I change one wall's length it changes the others. Please someone tell me how I can create these walls of the correct length. Do I need to use the Lock Start/Middle/End function? Seems as if I tried that before and it didn't seem to work -- but there again I may have been doing it wrong. Thanks Alan

Okay guys here's what I did. I set the default basement wall to a brick and block. I drew the first wall clockwise (from top to bottom) and set its length to 3'-10" (see first screenshot). I then drew the second wall at 45 degrees and set it's length to 4'-10" (see second screenshot). Now the length of the first wall has changed to 3'-3" (see third screenshot). I drew the third wall and set its length to 5'-9" now the length of the second wall has changed to 5'-2" and the first wall to 2'-8". How can I stop this happening? Thanks Alan

I'm going to work on this during the week and maybe take screen shots as I create each wall to show how the previous wall length has changed. Please be patient. Thanks Alan

Eric I have never figured out how to draw the same type of wall -- I always end up drawing the standard foundation wall and then changing it to what I need. How can I make all walls the same? The problem in drawing counter clockwise is that I end up with a wall that connects to the existing building that is not what I need. Thanks Alan

Okay guys I've run into some issues that affect the roof. Something didn't look right so I went back and checked the dimensions of the foundation walls and they are not what I originally drew and I tried to redraw them but got so frustrated that I quit and came back to this forum to ask for help. Here is the issue. If you look at the screen shot I posted I first drew the right hand wall that starts the bay. I set that to 3'-9". I then drew the next wall at 45 degrees and set its length at 5'-10". However that changed the dimension of the first wall -- not sure why. I thought maybe the options in the wall dialog box to lock the start, end or middle of the wall might help. So back to the first wall and changed it to 3'-9" and locked the end (still not sure which is the end or the start -- is it the way I drew it or something other?) I then changed the length of the second wall to 5'-10". The first wall maintained its dimension. However every time I added the next wall it changed the dimensions of the others. Please can someone help me out as to how to draw these walls so I can fix their dimensions? Thanks Sign me frustrated. Alan

Okay I'll do that. Alan

Eric Yes I corrected those -- had two different walls. Alan

Eric Yes that is exactly what I need. Alan

David What I was trying to create are pie shaped hip roofs for each bay. So in my case I would need 3 (one for the three walls with windows) with the eave of each roof parallel to the wall. Alan

On a plan I am drawing there is a Bay on both ends of the building with three sides (two sides at 45 degrees) to the main building walls. I need to create three hip roofs over this Bay that all join at a single point (see attached screenshot). I did do a search but nothing came back and there was no tutorial for it. Thanks Alan

Yes -- sorry about that my bad. Thanks for the link. Alan

How can I create a screened porch? I don't see any options under the wall menu. Thanks Alan

Yes I did it later I think that the roof plane was not visible. Alam

Whenever I try to draw skylight it draws a roof plane instead. Am I doing something wrong here? Thanks Alan

David I agree but when I have twenty dimensions across a wall for windows, doors, internal wall etc it is very time consuming. Also when framing a house the accuracy is normally to one half inch -- if that. In my experience framing crews hardly ever use fractions. So for Smallest Fraction what do I input -- 0 for the nearest inch? Thanks Alan

I have a similar issue but on mine it builds a roof over a porch slab which is on top of foundation walls all of which are on level 0. Alan

I have a ton of dimensions with fraction such as 26'-11 13/16". How can I force auto dimensioning to a whole inch? Thanks Alan

On the same subject what is the typical per SF change for drawing/designing a home from scratch? I just finished doing a two story home for a contractor friend and only charged him $400 as I was basically using his design to learn this new software (I come from ACAD Architect). I was wondering on future jobs what to charge. Thanks Alan

For some reason the slab is not showing up even though I set it at 4" thick. If you look at the siding wall of the house it has been lowered down to meet the (invisible) slab because I set the garage floor to be -24". This shouldn't happen. I'll try and post a plan later. Alan

I have a fast (280 GTX) card on my Mac and rendering takes about 5 seconds, Alan

Yes just hit PRINT -- set the paper size to ARCH C under Page Setup and save as a PDF. It will create a file XXX.layout.PDF. Make sure you tell them to print at 18" x 24". I just take a thumb drive into the store, Alan

Okay here is the 3D view. Alan

I have a couple of questions in adding a garage. I added a slab on grade garage structure to the side of the house. The grade is 36" below the first floor level. I entered -36" as the floor height in the structure window but in 3D view the siding on the side wall of the house in the area of the garage has now extended down to the garage floor. How can I stop that as the existing structure should not be affected by the garage? The second questions is why are the garage walls appearing on my second floor plan? Thanks Alan