Browneye

I would love to get some help but now my plan is 31526 KB (well over what is allowed to attach). I have another plan that is no where near as detailed that is 69,750 KB!!!! I would imagine the more detailed a plan (furniture, fixtures, etc) the more file size it would be but sometimes I see my plan file size go up when I haven't done anything. Are your file sizes this large? Any tips to reduce file size?

Ok, now I understand. Thanks. My build is in South Louisiana near Miss.

You said on top of the foundation wall which does not exist in a monolithic slab. The way you worded it confused me. Yes, top of foundation wall but it’s at the bottom of a studded wall. The sill plate (also called the sole plate or bottom plate) is at the bottom of the wall. • Sill plate/sole plate — bottom of the wall, anchored to the foundation; wall studs sit on top of it • Top plate — at the top of the wall, where the ceiling joists or roof trusses rest One nuance: “sill plate” technically refers to the plate that sits directly on the foundation (often pressure-treated and bolted down with anchor bolts), while “sole plate” can refer to any bottom plate of a wall assembly, including interior walls not touching the foundation. In everyday framing talk, though, people often use the terms interchangeably for “the bottom horizontal 2x board of a wall.”

It does appear to be a default item for any foundation. I guess if I'd changed it to 3 1/2" I wouldn't have had to change so many walls. I only have a few 2X6 walls for drainage pipes. Didn't want to completely remove it as I do need sill plates and wasn't sure how much work it would be to add them all back.

Thanks. I have no floor joist or rim joist because I have monolithic slab. At least it seems I have the same definition as you and the software. Its silly that they define this in the foundation vs. letting the software default it to the wall thickness with the option to change it only when you want a sill plate that is different than the wall thickness. The only scenario I can imagine where someone would want option would be if you had an extremely thick interior wall material and wanted to bring the sill plate out past the wall for base board backing.

Just to make sure I am not confusing normal terms with what the software calls a sill plate, I define a sill plate (a.k.a bottom plate) as the wood bottom piece of a wall. In the case of a monolithic slab on grade, the sill plate it treated and is bolted to the slab. There is also usually a sill seal between the bottom plate and the concrete. Typically the bottom plate is the same dimension as the wall being built so 3 1/2" for a 2x4 wall and 5 1/2 for a 2X6 wall. I just checked my 2x4 walls and all show a 5 1/2 sill plate. Shouldn't this be 3 1/2". If I'm correct on all this, maybe I'm expecting too much from the software meaning it should know what size sill plate to put based on the wall thickness? I'm really hoping I'm confused on this because its a pain to go change every single wall that is 2X4.

Thank you Carrie!

Doesn't answer my question. I want to make sure my material list is accurate so I want to know how I specify that the ceiling is sheetrock and its specified in the correct place of the software.

In case my signature no longer shows, I'm using Home Designer Pro 2021. When I click on the materials of a room, I see I've somehow set the Cantilever Underside to a color but then the ceiling finish is also a color. What exactly is "Cantilever Underside" and should this be set to Drywall if that is what I plan to use? I cannot seem to find in the default settings where I changed this. I've looked in Floors and Rooms, Walls, and many other places and cannot find where to set the default. I show in the Structure Dialog in the Room Specification that the Ceiling Finish is 5/8" and I didn't change that so it seems that would be the drywall. The main things I'm trying to figure out is how to set the default ceiling material to drywall and the color for each interior room.

Thanks. My plans say 1" air gap but I guess that means at least 1" because that's the only part of the wall that isn't pre-specified by the material being used. I'll be using 3 5/8" deep brick but of course it all still works out if I adjust the air gap so the total becomes 5 1/2 inches.

I am using Home Designer Pro 2021. I designed my home in the software and then had a professional draw up my plans. Now I want to take the small changes they made and update my plans I built as they made rooms slightly larger or smaller. My problem is that I cannot get their dimensions to match my dimensions. I make all the interior rooms match but then the exterior dimesions don't match. I call them and asked what depth they use for a brick wall thickness. My focus is a 2x4 stud wall with brick. They said their brick ledge is 5 1/2" and the total wall thickness is 9 1/2". They didn't seem too eager to help me understand any more detail than that. I've looked up typical brick depths and see 3 1/2" and 3 5/8 brick depths are normal. Even with a 3 5/8" brick depth, my total wall thickness in the software is only 9 1/16" inch (3 5/8" brick, 1" air gap, 7/16" OSB, 3 1/2" stud, and 1/2" drywall). Question 1 - Why does the software say this wall thickness is 9 1/16" but if you add those figures together, it comes out to 9 1/8" (see attachment). Question 2 - How is a brick ledge considered 5 1/2" (including 7/16" OSB, 1" air gap, and brick)? Assuming 3 5/8" brick, isn't that only 5 5/16"? Where is the other 3/16" coming from? Question 3 - When you look at exterior dimensions of a professional drawing (attached). Are those exterior dimensions actually from the outside of the brick or the outside of slab? Maybe they should be the same but didn't know if some bricklayers use an overhang or something that might be the dimension difference?

FYI - I was just watching a video on YouTube by David and noticed one issue I had. I had post to ceiling instead of post to beam. That fixed the issue in perspective view but the beam still does not show up in framing view. Any chance there is an option to show that beam in framing view?

I'm using Homedesigner Pro 2021 with Windows 11. I'm designing a backyard shed with a porch that I will build myself. I will need a permit and the city wants to see some plans. I'd also like to follow the plans myself of course. One layout I wanted to show them and have for myself is the framing perspective. When I show framing perspective over the roof, I see a problem. There is no header above the porch. Now I'm no carpenter but I'm pretty sure this framing won't hold as there is no header on the bottom side of the porch roof to transfer load to the posts. I assume this could be in the way I told the software to build the porch but not sure. Is this just a limitation of the software or is there a different way to tell the software how to build (what I guess is an attic wall) so it has a proper header? 16x24 Shed 20240204.plan

Thanks Rookie. That makes sense.

Thanks. I watched the entire video but it did not answer my question.