KSihota

Thanks so much for your help Mick. We will take what we have done to the Draftsman/Designer and they will create the set of plans from it for the permit and building and will have the engineer make any required changes. We will have to have the CRD verify the septic (not on sewer) and provide any requirements which will be added to the plans by the D/D. Luckily they have a relatively recent surveyor's certificate which they will also pass on to the D/D to use as the basis for the plans. What we have already is pretty complete and relatively accurate so the D/D should be able to produce the plans without too much trouble.

The colour button (on the Objects Properties dialog - Wall Specifications) does not appear to do anything. It does not even adjust the preview (which appears to be its purpose based on what I have read.) I can set the rendering to Glass House and set transparency to 0% but then the surfaces are grayed (based on the selected colour) and too dark. I find it strange that I can see one of the walls as white (light gray) siding (I changed the material for the exterior walls) where the other 3 sides of the building have darker gray siding. I assume this has something to do with lighting but I can't find anything to control or adjust this. The colour menu item under View toggles the colours on the floor plan view but does nothing for the 3D elevations.

Thanks, I'll check it out. I wasn't planning on actually doing the final building plans. If those are what are needed for the permit then I may as well get someone else to do all the work based on the basic plan I have already drawn. I was doing the basic stuff for my daughter (to save her some money) like giving her design options that she could take to the contractor to get a price range in order to then go to the bank and obtain a mortgage to complete the job. She was told that she would have to have draft plans submitted for the permit and then plans drawn up by the engineer as the blueprints for the builder. However, if she only needs a set of plans now to submit to the municipality for the permit and these are the same plans used by the builder then I don't have to do any of this extra work (although it is quite fun and would be even better with the full blown software.)

Thanks all for your suggestions and input. I did get a set of plans from the builder to show me what the municipality is looking for (permit.) They look very similar to the ones you lined to KBird1 BTW it is an addition onto an existing home. THe house is being extended on one end by about 12 feet and front and back about 5 to 8 feet. This essentially means a new roof for the larger section over half the house and the other portion is left as is. The original house is a simple rectangle (24' x 44' approx. with 2x4 framing) and the new portion adds a larger rectangle on one end covering half the original foundation and creating a T shape. The foundation is slab on a footing. The end wall of the original home remains as an inside wall or will be rebuilt if necessary as the roof over this section will be completely redone. I downloaded the Pro version and it appears to be able to do most of the suff I need, but then I looked at the Chief Architect Premier at it is really the product to use. Of course I can't afford it (although I could rent it for a month) and the Pro version is still a little pricey for me. I will try to do the permit plan using what I have. Is there any way to get the 3D elevation to display without all the detail and colours? I want it to be more like a technical drawing. I tried using white siding but only one wall shows white the rest is gray. I assume this has something to do with the lighting as the roof does the same thing. I can't see any way to get the section views I need so those I will have to draw myself. The ones I have seen appear to be rather standard construction sections. Is this true? If so I could just copy ones from plans I have.

Langford Colwood area near Victoria (Vancouver Island) The 5 plans I listed originally is all the municipality is asking for and the pic I sent is one of their examples. As I stated before it looks like they are asking for a minimal amount to obtain the permit. Actual building plans to be obtained after the permits.

Thanks for the information. I am in BC Canda and the information to obtain the building permit does not appear to be very detailed. The pic I included is an example of what they are looking for. Once the permit is approved then we will need to have an engineer draw up the proper blueprints. I guess the municipality just wants to make sure you are meeting minimum requirments before building and it would be silly to pay a bunch of money for detailed plans just to have it refused once you go to get the permit. I will see what it will cost to have my plans drafted but my guess is that it will be more than me upgrading to Pro. I would rather spend the money on the program (which I can use for other projects) than to just give it out for a single job. If Pro can give me the ability to produce dimensions on the elevation plans as well as produce the cross sections (as shown in the pic) I would go with it. I suppose I could downlod a trial version of it an import my plan to check it out. Of coursse I could just manually add the required data to the existing plans and hand draw the cross section. Kim

In order to obtain building permits from the municipality they require several different drawings of the plan. 1. Site Plan (legal description, setbacks, right of ways, easements other structures etc.) 2. Floor plans (dimensions, window sizes, area names, structural info) 3. Sections (wall cross section(s) to detail all construction assemblies) 4. Foundation Plan (footing and foundation location and sizes, slab info or floor framing members) 5. Elevations (all elevation views, label direction facing, building height, finishes etc.) I have been able to produce #1, #2, and #4 using HD Suite 2016. I can produce #5 but don't see how I can label or place measurements using the program on the elevation view. I don't see any way to produce #3 Wall sections with labels providing the detailed information. Is there some way to produce these in HD Suite or do any of the other versions (Pro or Architect) do this? I could produce the drawings by hand or manually fill in the info on the existing drawings or pay someone to produce the drafts for me but it seems that I should be able to do this type of task right in the program. Is this possible? Thanks for any help. Kim