jeffaxelrod

Nope, nothing in the main help, nothing in the reference manual. I find the limitations in suite largely arbitrary. I'd like to see Chief Architect change their sales model into a hourly charge system rather than limiting random features that you only run into once you spend a significant amount of time modeling your home for personal use. For instance, I have had to jam geometric shapes under my eaves to fill them in, I've had to do the same to fix ceilings, and now I have to jury rig outside walls because of Chief Architect attempts to differentiate me from a pro. Add this to the various annoying unfixed bugs I've run into and this makes for quite a frustrating end user experience.

Thanks so much Mick for taking the time to upload annotated screenshots! Unfortunately, the CAD preferences group is completely missing from Suite.

Hi Mark, I'm not sure what you mean by the "edit object parts" tool, or if it exists in Suite. When I look at the normal edit dialog, there's no height specification for the selected wall subsection. Your workaround with creating multiple walls, adjusting the height, then carefully pushing them together while holding control does sort of work though. You have to make sure that none of the walls is sitting on a snapped boundary. Then you have to join them with the control key held so wall segments don't snap. If you don't hold down control, they will snap together and destroy the height change. It's a feature!

Is it possible to create a terrain wall with multiple, stepped heights? When I try to create multiple sections of terrain walls, they are automatically joined. The "break wall" tool is apparently not functional either. From what I can tell, it's impossible to create a "stepped" terrain wall like the one in the below photo. Is that the case?

Mick, there's no frame tab on the window specification. The only tab that has a depth setting is "sash" and I'd already played with that. Regarding wall depth, I'm just going by our original architectural drawings, which show an 8" exterior wall depth on the ground floor. I believe it probably includes all finishes: brick and interior plaster. The drawings don't show the breakdown of each layer (brick, plaster/drywall, etc.) as in Home Designer. Our house is circa 1950 if that matters.

Sorry, I thought this forum was just for Home Designer Suite. I'm using Home Designer Suite 2015. I had already checked the user's manual and scoured the website and found no useful information discussing window depth. Thanks, Jeff

Our architect drew a grid of windows in the elevation view and I'm trying to lay it out using Home Designer. First, what's the term for a grid of windows like this? (As opposed to a single window with lites) EDIT: Found answer, an array of conjoined windows to form a larger unit is known as a "mulled." We have 8" exterior walls in our home, and it looks like Home Designer is forcing the windows to be too thick/deep as shown in the below rendering. It looks pretty ugly to me with all of that material between the glass. I'm not familiar with window construction/architecture at all, so I'm wondering: is it possible for windows to be thinner than the depth of the walls surrounding them? It kind of works that way in our home's existing bay window. If it is possible to construct the windows this way, is there a way to implement them as such in Home Designer? I see no setting for "window depth." Here's a photo from Marvin Windows' website showing a grid of windows that does not look anywhere near as deep/thick as the Home Designer renderings.

Thanks for the info guys, I guess I'll be forced to use my imagination Or maybe I can create a long triangular wedge shape in there to help out. Just thought of that idea...

I'm using Home Designer Suite to help visualize design ideas of my own home, of which one of its apparent limitations is that it disallows design of boxed eaves, which we have. I'd like a more accurate visualization of our addition--someone in support suggested that I ask on the forum if there's someone willing to edit my roof to include the boxed eaves and send it back. I'd be grateful if someone could help me. I'd like to ensure this is only done once--the length of the addition room is currently in flux. I assume I'd have to do this once we finalize the roofline, or else a rebuild will revert to the unboxed eaves?

I'm new to the Home Designer Suite (2015) and drew a basic outline of my house. My existing professional architectural plans show the exterior wall thickness as 8", so I manually changed the wall thickness to exactly 8". However, when I create a room with an 8" thick wall, and then take interior measurements, the program lists completely wrong interior measurements. For example a room whose exterior length is 20'2" shows an interior length of 19' 7 7/8" instead of 20'2"-16" = 19'2" I did notice when zooming in, that even exterior measurements are not taken from outer wall material edge to outer edge. It looks like it's measuring from some interior point. What gives? Is there any way to simplify so measurements work out correctly? I know about changing dimension defaults smallest fraction, which I thought would be a good workaround, but it still gave incorrect interior dimensions.