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Eric I found out how to do it -- copied the Siding 4 wall, renamed it Cedar Shakes 4 and changed the outer material to a Certainteed shake. Alan

I'm trying to create a wall with cedar shakes. Maybe I didn't do it correctly but I just selected the existing 4" siding wall and added a new material (cedar shakes) to the exterior surface but it doesn't change anything. What am I doing wrong? Thanks Alan BTW I did a search but nothing came up.

Eric How does one create a porch out of a room -- make it with walls and then make them invisible? Thanks Alan

Eric I'm aware of that. I had the design almost finished and the contractor reminded me of the first floor rough ceiling height of 109.5" and the second floor of 97" and floor joist of 9.25". I changed the structures in the rooms on the first floor. I went back and spent hours trying to find where on the second floor the floor joist was not right but in one room I cannot access the structure page. That is the area that you noted the ceiling was not aligned. I finally gave up. The only thing that is stopping me finishing this is that stupid closet on the first floor that is creating walls on the second floor. The program is not supposed to auto build interior walls -- just exterior ones. I guess I will just have to deleted the closet when I print the second floor. Alan

Eric I think that is why I cannot change the structure of the spaces on the first floor as it gives me a message saying there are variable height floors on the second floor -- as you pointed out. I spent two hours looking at all of the rooms on the second floor and found one small area in the RH dormer that I couldn't fix -- so I've basically given up on that as the only alternative is to create a whole new second floor and my contractor is on my back to finish up. To be honest it doesn't affect the plans. Thanks Alan David I went into the structure of the closet and unchecked the Ceiling above this room box but the walls still appear upstairs. Not sure where to go from here. I even made the second floor walls invisible but they still show up on the docs. Thanks Alan

I have a coat closet on my first floor and all of a sudden I get the same walls on my second floor. When I try to delete them on the second floor I get the message that says they are auto generated walls but after deleting them I'm left with their outline in dotted. I went back and deleted the closet on the first floor and created it again -- thinking that now it would not auto generate on the second floor but it still does. I would add that one wall of the new closet was an extended existing wall which does at generate but the other two are new. Could this be why the walls show up on the second floor? Thanks Alan Okay I just watched a video and it says that only the external walls auto generate to create the second floor (which is what I did with this project) so I'm not sure why these three interior walls are auto generating -- bug maybe? Alan

Eric As much as I tried I couldn't get those side walls to cut below the roof plane. I ended up just extending them for the elevations and cutting them back for the plan. When I get time I will play around with it some more (and try the auto dormer. Thanks for your help Alan

Wow thanks a lot Eric. I'll have to change the one dormer to a shed as he didn't want at gable roof (we had those before). My contractor has been bugging me to get these changes to him so he'll be happy. Alan

Eric I tried that and it doesn't work. I would expect that the wall would be cut by the roof plane so that there is only a wall above the plane and not below -- just as it would be built on site. Alan

Thanks Eric. I would love to know how you did the garage roof because when I tried to do an auto roof it came out really strange with roof planes in weird places. Thanks Alan

I have posted a few questions here -- how to fix the side walls of my shed dormers so they don't protrude into the second floor -- but get cut off below the roof plane and how to make a gable roof over the angled garage. I have tried your suggestions but to no avail. The auto roof function creates roofs all over the place but not where I want them. Could someone please take a look at my plan and fix the problem areas -- the dormer roofs and the garage roof as I am exasperated. For some reason auto roofs never work for me on this and other projects. If someone could also let me know where I'm going wrong then I can fix it in the future and not have to bother you guys. Thanks Alan Foothills 7660 Franklin Road.plan

Thanks Eric Alan

Okay let me try the auto roof option. I created all the other roof planes manually. Alan

A house I did a while back has come back to have an angled garage and I'm not sure how to create the roof system. I have already created a gable roof over the straight section of the garage but how to infill to the wall of the house (its roof is higher) has me stumped. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Alan

I need some help with a shed dormer. I created and Automatic Dormer, changed the roof to Shed but the side walls extend too far into my second floor (see first image). If I shorten them then there is insufficient walls to close in the dormer. BYW I had to explode the dormer and make changes as it reverted to a box if I tried to manipulate it unexploded. Thanks Alan

David Thank you for your quick reply. Alan

I imported a DXF file into my plan but it is in the wrong scale. For instance a wall that is supposed to be 56' long is shown as 56". How can I get the import to the correct size. Also it drops the import over my existing drawing which will make it very difficult to make changes. How can I specific the location where it is imported to? Thanks Alan

That is strange as I did the plans for a sunroom addition and a new deck on my house. I only provided a site plan showing distances to all of the setbacks for the new addition and a plan plus one elevation. I had three 3"x3"x1/4" steel columns supporting the extension sitting on concrete foundations and the city required that the structural columns be designed by a licensed structural engineer -- nothing about the foundations. I sent the engineer a drawing of the columns and he put them on his title sheet and stamped it. Alan

Darn it I was trying the right click on the title bar of the view -- not the camera. DUH. Alan

Mick I just copied the data over from the paper copy. Used the tutorial which worked a treat -- except for the text size but that got fixed by tech support (see my other post). Thanks Alan

Mick I got a quick response from tech support -- reply below. I see that they also added the ability to draw set backs. Unfortunately you cannot have different set backs for each boundary line. Alan Thank you for bringing this inconsistency to our attention. It appears that the Plot Plan Text Style exists only in certain plan style templates. We have corrected and republished this article so that it will now work regardless of which plan style template is being used. Specifically, under the section ‘To change the display to decimal feet and bearings’, we have added a step showing you how to create the Text Style “Plot Plan Text Style”. You should be able to follow the updated article now without further issue. For your convenience, here is another link to the article: http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00576

Mick I'm not seeing what you are. I don't see 15 text choices or Contour Line Text Style-- I only have 4 for CAD default layer. Perhaps I'm not on the same page. Alan

Mike How do I change what I have to Contour Lines? Thanks Alan

Mick It said those options are available "in Home Designer Pro 2012 and later. I'll let them know. Alan

I need help with a site plan. I followed the tutorial on How to Create a Site Plan in HD Pro but I cannot get my boundary text large enough. If you look at the screen shot the tutorial says to select Plot Plan Text Style in Default settings but I don't have those options -- just default label, default text, room label styles, and ¼" text. None of these makes the text large enough. Alan