447Debbie

I thought I did, but after your post, I went back to 'build framing' and checked the box to 'automatically rebuild', and then it worked. I guess just clicking OK without checking the automatic box doesn't do a rebuild for framing.

Does anyone know what I can do to eliminate having these floor joists extend beyond the outside wall? I don't know how this even happened.

Agree on the handrail. I was able to get the outside (left when going up) railing with a smooth connection, but not the inside railing. Unless you know of a setting I can click on to connect them, I'll just leave this for the architect.

I think I figured out a workaround. I might even leave the final construction like this, vs. a winder. HOWEVER, I don't know if this is allowed. I don't see why it wouldn't be, but stranger things show up in building codes. This might be a gray area. Both landings are making a turn, but they are also in the direction of travel, so having that middle step as a standard tread depth might not meet code. If it doesn't, I'm sure a three step winder would meet code there, I just can't draw it in this program. I worked out the math though and it will meet the 6" minimum and the 10" minimum at the 12" walk line. In my opinion, what I have drawn is actually safer than a winder. But if it's not to code, I'll stick a winder in there.

Whenever I put in more than one landing, the stairway is no longer considered one and I have to manually tell the program at what height to place everything. That's a royal pain and open for errors. I think the program should allow you to draw steps to the IRC code.

I find it impossible to draw winder stairs to meet the building codes. They need to be 6" minimum at the NARROWEST portion, then 10" minimum tread depth at a distance 12" out at the walk line. It's the 6" dimension I am having trouble with. I cannot force the winders to the 6" minimum. I've tried using a narrower stairway, stretching the stairs, etc, nothing seems to work. The program always fills in the steps and makes that minimum dimension somewhere around 1.5" give or take. For example, see attached picture. If I try to open up the space inside the "u-shape" in an attempt to get that 6" dimension, the program just automatically adds another step. I cannot draw these steps to meet the 6" code.

I do understand the Manual J, S, T, and D, and the truss/joist sizes vs. spans. My problem is I am trying to account for all of this before I turn it over to the architect, in the hopes that I will not have to make big changes once the architect takes over. In addition to this, the basement went deeper than normal in order to get the front of the house higher. (I know that sounds wrong, but it allows me to meet grade in the back and front and thus makes the driveway less steep.) Of course, this causes the stairway to take up more length. The stairs will run parallel to the floor joist up until when they turn at the bottom. They are up against an outside after they turn so I suppose I could put in another footing/wall and run the deeper joists to that wall, then span the 4' over the stairway with "shallower" joists. Lots of trade-offs. I'm just trying to get it all drawn up so that when the architect takes it over I don't end up having to do a full redesign because of neglecting to account for the 80" head clearance. Regarding the codes: As it is, the town has adopted these two codes. I assume the more stringent one is the one that applies unless they have another code book, that states the order of precedence, that I have not yet found. 2012 IBC 1009.7.2 Riser height and tread depth. Stair riser heights shall be 7 inches (178 mm) maximum and 4 inches (102 mm) minimum. Edited to ask: Is this the riser itself that shall be a max of 7 inches, without measuring the thickness of the tread? 2012 IRC R311.5.3.1 Riser height. The maximum riser height shall be 7 3⁄4 inches (196 mm). The riser shall be measured vertically between leading edges of the adjacent treads. Edited to ask: I wonder if these two standards are saying the same thing. The bottom one is adding 3/4" to the equation by adding in the tread thickness? I have read the codes with regards to the winders and the 10" depth needed 12" in from the "point" and using the tan function calculated I'll only be able to squeeze two steps, not three, on a winder landing. Emailed the city. I think the IRC is for residential. If so, and I can use 7 3/4" rise, that will help immensely.

One of the architects suggested 18" -24" floor trusses in order to get the ductwork in the basement ceiling so I'm scrambling for ways to get the 6'8" headroom.

I have an L-shaped stairway and want to make the landing a winder section but I still want it square. How do I do this? My stairs are 48" wide with an 11" tread depth. Current landing is 48'X48". Attached is a picture of what I'm trying to do.

I tried this suggestion, but it doesn't show the terrain, instead it goes all the way to the basement floor. Maybe I'm just not pointing the camera in the right direction. I'll keep messing with it.

How can I deduce this measurement from Home Designer Pro 2018?

I basically created the top cabinet by copying the bottom one and making some changes from a door to drawers. All was good, then I flipped the desk left to right and I end up with a board at the bottom of the opening. How do I get rid of this? It's a desk, there will be floor there, not part of a cabinet. See area in red rectangle. That's what I want to eliminate.

Thanks. Option 1 and the point to point move did it. Is there a way I can LOCK these lines so that I don't move them as I am working on the plan?

I'm trying to improve the accuracy of my setback lines. The rear set back line should be 25', the two on the right need to be 20' and 30', the front set back needs to be 20', and the left side set back needs to be 7'. I can't find an accurate way to do it other than measure, move, measure, move, measure, move, until I get it, and even then I'm not sure it's exact since I'd have to measure with a perpendicular line to the between the lot line and the set backs. Red lines are lot lines, blue lines are setbacks. Combining topo with perimeter rev 1.plan

I have a drawing of my lot and its setback lines, and it's not a perfect right angle rectangle so setting absolute dimensions between the lines isn't as simple as taking a measurement because it would take more calculations to determine if the measurement line was perpendicular to the lines I'm trying to measure. Is there a way to just tell Home Designer Pro 2018 that you want 25' feet between two parallel lines?

UPDATE: It was the fault of the viewer. I signed up for the AutoCad viewer and it viewed it just fine. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I tried to export a file to .dxf format to send to a civil engineering firm. I don't have a program to see the dxf files, except I downloaded a dxf viewer. When I export the dxf file and open it in the viewer it's just a blob like that in the second image. What am I doing wrong? The first image, junk1.jpg is what the file looks like before exporting to .dxf. The second image, junk2.jpg is what I get when I look at the .dxf in the viewer. I'd hate to send files that someone can't see.

Is there a way I can make all walls in the entire floor one color with one command vs. having to highlight each wall to do it?

This doesn't work for me. The line size never changes in weight.

After some trial and error, I've finally succeeded in getting my topographic elevation lines imported into Home Designer Pro. The terrain perimeter is the big rectangle, which actually covers the area outside of the actual lot. That's OK, and probably even a good thing, BUT, I'd like to somehow define the lot polygon so that I can see it in 3D perspective view as I'd like to look at this in 3D but still be able to tell where the actual lot line is. The lot is the gray highlighted area in the attached picture. It is defined by a polyline. Is there a way to make that polyline a fence or something in order to be able to see this in the 3D perspective view?

UPDATE: I finally got this work. I would post how I did it, but I really don't know, and I'd rather just delete this post now, but I can't figure out how to do that. So if the moderator wants to delete this....please feel free to do so. Hopefully the pictures will be enough to show my problem. If not, then I'll upload the actual file. I've imported terrain lines from a .dwg file from the topography I just had done on a lot. How does one go about smoothing the terrain lines to eliminate the jagged peaks, etc?

From technical support: Thank you sharing this. I don't believe this is a known bug but I have reached out to our development team to let them know of the error. I was able to easily reproduce the incorrect reporting of dimensions and square footage. You will need to place a custom label using text at this point to get the correct size.

I just submitted it. We'll see what they say.

I noticed when I was creating rooms with two 45 deg angles that Home Designer Pro 2018 was showing an incorrect label. For an example, which is attached, I made an 8' x 8' room and bisected it with a 45 deg angled wall. The program then reported the triangular portion of the room was 2" x 2" and 29 SQ FT. Is this a known bug? I assume the 29+29 not equaling the 8x8 = 64 sq ft is just due to rounding error, but the 2" x 2" is baffling.

Understood, but sometimes some programs do funny things, like end up with parts of the working area off the screen. I guess I can make up for that with the screen resolution.

Any idea how good Home Designer Pro 2018 is at scaling? I have a chance to buy a 4k display, but I'll have to scale it to be able to read the text.