dweeden

Thanks! There's some other really cool old houses in our neighbourhood. This is one of my favourites where they go all out for Halloween https://www.google.ca/maps/place/236+3rd+Ave,+New+Westminster,+BC+V3L+1M1/@49.210782,-122.9108396,3a,75y,305.18h,81.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smPQqCdd3ty1-VFJ2vrk3OA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x5485d80b33b5b3b5:0xe975c4a2b84829d!8m2!3d49.2108171!4d-122.910304

Awesome, very cool and thanks! I gained my understanding of the term pony wall years ago from an old carpenter who helped us rework a deck in our cottage. Part of that was cantilevered and ended up at one step higher than the rest. When we reworked the deck so it was all the same level, the base of one wall was hanging in the air so he built what he called a wood frame "pony wall" about a foot high to support it. Terminology is important in forums like this so I'll be sure to use the reference manual to firm up my terms going forward. Thanks to both you and Solver!

Well I may have my naming wrong here but I thought a pony wall was just a short wall. In our case they're 2x4 with ship lap cladding and shingled siding, penetrated by windows along the side.

Brilliant, that's exactly what I needed to know. Thank you!

I thought a little picture of the front of our house might help (a thousand words and all). The red stairs here lead up the 49" to the first floor and there's ones at the back that go up as well plus some others going 3)" down into the basement. The lower darker shingling covers the crawlspace under the front porch and there's windows along the left side and the kitchen from my diagram looks into the back yard.

Just found that this is Pro only feature which suggests I may need that version to model our front porch resting on a continuous shallower footing but am very hesitant to pay 60% more if a semi basement can't be modeled Advanced Foundation Controls. Specify foundation types by room, foundations with slab at top of Stem Wall, garage slabs with monolithic foundations, foundation piers as round or square, and other foundation customizations.

Well the videos showed how to do fully underground basement or a walk out and neither seemed applicable to my situation where half of the basement is 30" below ground and there's a 49" pony wall necessitating a short flight of steps from ground level either down into the basement or up to the 1st floor. Though it was late last night, I tried to change the foundation walls into pony walls that projected above grade but that didn't go well so wondering if this is: something I can do with my edition but haven't figured out how to yet OR something that requires a Home Designer Pro or Chief Architect (Pro) product And lastly as for whether modeling the house as is is a requirement, I'm not entirely sure if the city will want that but I'd like to model as much of our home as is so we can mock up changes to our bathroom, kitchen, semi finished attic level, etc. I figured I should start by at least getting the building footprint correct and pieces of it are complicated for a new user. Things like the kitchen and now enclosed front porch sitting over 49" earth floor crawlspaces. Even if we make the foundation under the kitchen the same height as the main foundation, we'll still have a crawlspace under the front porch so knowing whether the software supports parts of the foundation being at a different depth than the rest would be good to know. So in a nutshell, can my edition of the software model semi basements with partial crawlspaces with foundations whose footings are more shallow than the rest? And is so, how can I do that? Dave Please see my other answer for some picture and possibly a little more context.

Done

Thanks Jo_Ann, maybe the answer lies in varying the terrain. Will check that out. Dave

Well I guess it's that neither of the basement videos that show how to do a fully underground or walk out seem applicable to our situation. Here's a couple of pictures showing our house as it currently is, we're going to be dropping the foundation under the kitchen to match that of the bit beside it so creating a model where the foundation depth varies is kind of a moot point. We'll be off the races I think if I can get my head around how the 1st floor sits on top of a 49" pony wall on those 30" sub grade walls. Dave

Hi, New user of Home Designer Architect and can't seem to figure out how to model an existing very old house (1908) on a pretty much flat lot due to the following problems. 1) Our ~79" high semi basement (slab to bottom of first floor joists) goes down 30" below grade with pony walls resting on very old original 8" concrete walls that leak like a sieve 2) Part of the footprint of the house is a dirt ground level crawlspace (49" clearance) with a more shallow foundation (I think this is a half basement) I'm needing to submit a site plan to the city for a permit to deepen the foundation in #2 to match that of #1 while we're installing perimeter drainage and having a heck of a time figuring out how to model this in software. While I could hack it to get the permit started, I'd really like to do this properly so I can model the interior of our finally usable basement and extend our deck on the first level so any guidance would be most appreciated! Also wondering if these are features only available in the Pro edition. Thanks, Dave