Keith_K

I'm hoping that a re-install will iron out the bugs that have crept in from somewhere. But I don't know how to do it as I don't have a disc and if I un-install the programme I will have nothing on my computer to re-install from. So I'm asking if someone can tell me how to achieve a re-install.

Support isn't available to me any longer for my two year old version of the software which is behaving very strangely indeed. It ignores my default settings, changes ceiling heights at random, changes which bricks I have used and now I have lost the floors of two rooms. I have done a search for instructions to no avail. I do not have a disc as my programme download/installation was done directly from Chief Architect. Please advise. Thank you.

The product of her guidance... Ba Ro Floor Plan Upper Level No Dimensions.pdf BaRo Floor Plan Lower Level No Dimensions.pdf 3D and camera images.doc

...who, on her own volition, contacted me by e-mail and offered to help me understand the complications of creating a plan on a steep gradient. Her patience was astonishing over a period of a couple of months and, while probably not perfect, I am delighted to have learned so much from her.

My software is behaving erratically and I am trying to raise a ticket with HD Support but every time I try and send it it gets converted to a saved draft. My version of the software doesn't appear on their list of options so I couldn't complete that field in the heading. Does this mean that my version is no longer supported and that if anything does wrong with it it's just bad luck?

Thanks Eric. That worked but in doing so another problem was created. The programme decided to change the colour of the brickwork on the exterior wall for the full length of the window. I also discovered that the ability to uncheck "Use exterior casing" has been greyed out so it can't be changed. On checking the other door types default settings I found that this was the same for the interior and exterior doors, the doorway, the interior sliding door and the bi-fold door. The facility is still available for the exterior sliding door, the pocket door and the garage door. Since starting this plan after my gap of two years I have noticed that the programme is behaving very oddly at times. There have been no updates since I last used it as far as I can see and I'm wondering whether reinstalling will sort it out. The problem with doing that is that I will have used up my reinstall allocation so if anything goes awry in the future I'll be stuffed. Given that I hardly use it these days it's not worth the cost of getting the latest version. While I'm here I like to take the opportunity of wishing you and yours a very happy and prosperous New Year and thank you for all the help you have given me over the years.

There are sliding doors and floor to ceiling fixed glass windows in the wall and I want to have the railing across the width of the opening. I have managed to do this on the plan by using invisible walls along the shape of the railing and unchecking "floor under this room" but when I view in 3D it shows the floor. You will see that the short ends of the invisible walls have butted up against the railing but the long section is a short distance away. If I try and move the long section closer to the railing it deletes the railing completely. Any suggestions? Barry plan.plan

Thank you for your patience with me, gentlemen. It behoves me to admit that I seem to have been a complete numbskull and that, because I last used HD almost two years ago, I seem to have forgotten some of the basics. Eric's last reply above made me think and I discovered that I was trying to create a new floor while still on the floor that I was drawing instead of first moving up a floor and then using the "build new floor" tool. What a total waste of three days! All is well now. Thanks again. Until the next time my aged brain lets me down.

Hello David and Eric. Good to see that the old stalwarts are still around. I'm often told that I have a gift for words and that I should have been a writer but when ever I try and explain a problem on here the words I choose never seem to convey my problem succinctly enough for others to understand. I'll try again... 1. I have been sent a set of plans of a house he wants to build by a friend in SA who has asked me for suggestions. 2. In order to show him what my suggestions are I need to replicate the plan. 3. The erection will be on a sloping terrain with a basement configuration underneath the main house. 4. I have never used HD on a sloping terrain before so I printed their article on how to model a sloping terrain for a walk-out basement. Article number KB-00718 refers. 5. The result was a hash-up so I deleted the elevation lines leaving me with the drawing of the basement section on a flat terrain. 6. I then tried to add a floor above the basement and had only drawn a couple of walls when I noticed, although I had never selected it, that the basement section was listed by HD as floor 2. To me it should have been floor 1 as the terrain was flat. 7. I was unable to change it to read floor 1. Whatever I try the basement section in perspective views is always reflected on top of the main living area instead of under it. 8. I gave up trying to think it through myself and turned to the forums for help. I tried the suggestion made by Eric to no avail. 8. This morning I decided to scrap the original drawing and start again. Because the terrain isn't really relevant to the changes I am making which only involve the interior layout and windows etc. I made no attempt to create a slope and drew the basement section again on a flat terrain using invisible walls on which the upper story would "rest". This shows on my screen as floor 1. 9. All well and good until I try and add a floor above it. Then the crap starts again. HD says that floor 2 doesn't exist and takes me straight to "attic". 10. I now don't know what to do and hope that what I have written now is easier to understand. I have attached my new drawing as well as copies of the drawings sent to me. Keith Barry GROUND FLOOR.pdf Barry LOWER FLOOR.pdf Barry side elevation A.pdf Barry side elevation B.pdf Barry section a-a.pdf Barry plan suggestions.plan

I've been away from HD forums for a long time, almost 2 years, and it's good to see that it is still going strong. I received excellent assistance from contributors in the past so I am hoping someone will be ably to help me now. A friend who lives in South Africa sent me copies of plans he had drawn up for a new house he wants to build next year. The house will be on a sloping terrain. He wanted my comment and suggestions and I am full of them but in order to show them I have to recreate the plan from the drawings he sent. I printed off KB-00718 for modelling on a sloping terrain which said that I should start drawing what would, in effect, be the lower ground floor (basement). Once I had done this I used the "build new floor tool" so that I could start drawing what would be the living accommodation using the reference floor thingy. I had only done the exterior walls when I noticed that what should be floor 1 (i.e. the basement) is showing as being floor 2 and whatever I draw for what should be floor 2 is showing as floor 0 so that the basement sits on top of the living area instead of vice versa. I tried swapping floors and all other options that I could find to no avail. What must I do to enable me to carry one copying the drawings. I have attached the drawing of the lower ground floor. I have an idea that I might be told that the method doesn't work without the sloping terrain being drawn (and this isn't really needed for what I want to show my friend) but I don't have actual levels and my attempts at doing so created something weird. If this slop is vital to achieve my end what would the absolute simplest way be of doing it? Thanks in advance, Barry plan.plan

...especially since I don't envisage myself using the software much after my current project is finished. There was nothing wrong with the drawings and elevations (3D or otherwise) before I installed 2017 and now I get abortions like the one below. When I saw that (which is of my current project) I checked on other files and every single one of them has got similar problems. Missing roofs, walls where no walls used to be, no walls where walls used to be etc. etc. etc And then, just to irritate me even more, when I open a file to see what it now looks like in 2017 I get this annoying pop-up even though I have modified absolutely nothing, just looked. Then, to cap it all, even though I still have 2016 installed on my computer when I try and open any of my files (using the "open with function") to see if I can see what changes 2017 has made I'm told that it can't be done. Can I have my money back, please. I promise to delete 2017 afterwards.

OK! OK! Message received! Eric, I've un-hesitated and installed the new software. Didn't go as it should have according to the instructions I printed off as I wasn't given the opportunity of excluding templates and sample plans from the installation. These are all in unchangeable American dimensions and are of no use to me and they just take up disc unnecessary space. That said, at least I don't get asked whether I want to allow the software to make changes to my computer every time I open a plan as I did after downloading 2016 last year. Now to have a look and see what interesting changes have been made. Most interested to see whether they have listened to what people have said and have now provided the facility to set the inset distance of doors like they do with windows. It will also interest me to see if the internal dimensions remain the same on each if I open two copies of the plan in separate windows. Why do I do that, you might ask. One copy is the Master plan and the other is where I play around with furniture and fittings etc. I'm strange that way. On the current plan that I am busy with there were differences which took me ages to discover the cause of. For some reason the start point of the measurement one copy had moved from the wall surface to a couple of pixels into the wall. I still haven't finished finding the errant arrow points and moving them back to where they belong.

Somewhat against my better judgement I upgraded to the 2017 version of HD Pro yesterday afternoon and downloaded the software which is now awaiting installation. I notice that the 64 bit version for Mac was also downloaded and that it shows a file size of 291MB whereas the 32 bit Windows version only has a file size of 271 MB. Should this be the case? As some of you might know I am not a tech fundi and because my upgrade to the 2016 version was fraught with problems I am hesitant to do the installation of the new software in case something is missing from it and I have to go through all the hassle I went through before. I have tried the check this information on the HD website but can't find an answer. Thank you.

Belated thank you, Jo_Ann. I've tried using the fill tools but they don't work. Just another quirk of HD, I suppose. And now I've gone and paid for the 2017 version even though I've never been entirely happy with the 2016 and the funny things it does that I never experienced before. Happy New Year to you.

Can anyone explain why insulation is showing at the bottom of the central gables and also at the bottom of the far (right) gable and how I might get rid of it? Just to explain further: While the far wall is marked as a gable wall in the wall specifications (as is the chimney wall) it doesn't generate automatically like the chimney wall does in a doll house view (see 2nd image) and only appears as an automatically generated attic wall like the central gables when a full overview is selected. For some reason I am unable to upload the plan. I just get pop-ups saying that the upload failed. Has something changed regarding plan uploads since I was last on here at the beginning of the year?

Yep. I did just that. I didn't have the will to wade through the manual so I played with polylines and things and I am happy with what I achieved. 1 Manley Close FULL RENOVATION version 3.layout

Thanks, chaps. The "problem" is that when foundations are ticked it shows the footings as well and for this project this is not needed as the alterations to the dwelling fall under what is called "permitted development" in this country and fully detailed drawing aren't necessary.. I read somewhere and at some stage of my HD career that cross sections etc. are supposed to be editable so I'll just have to search the manual to see if I just imagined it or not.

All stem walls under every wall show up in 3D view but when I do a cross section half of them don't show. Why is this?

Hello Jo-Ann. I was wondering when our specialist would be along. Indeed it is as you described. Cheap tat on cheap tatty houses. It would have helped if I could have remembered the term "corbels" but at the time all my brain could come up with was "canopy". One last question - Why am I getting the colour bleed shown in the picture below? The ground and first floor walls are perfectly aligned and I have played with various combinations of the "reverse layers" function but it won't go away and when I do the elevations it appears on them as a very distinct stepped rectangle in the colour instead of just a clean, straight line from top to bottom. Enjoy your weekend.

I haven't a bloody clue as to why I used the cladding as an exterior surface on the SIPS wall!! I have never done this before and have always had a small air gap between the actual wall and the cladding. My head must have been la-la land or somewhere equally exotic when I did those wall definitions and caused so much time wasting on both sides of the Atlantic. Anyway, I changed it to how I usually draw SIPS and corrected the main layer and everything is now fine. I just wish that I had done that before deleting my original drawing and starting from scratch because I had already done the roof bathrooms and stuff. Thanks for your input. Now can you point me in the right direction to find a canopy for over the front door that looks like the one drawn in the submitted plans? The ones in the library aren't any good.

You've well and got me now, my friend. Since I started using HD all I have ever done is set floor defaults even for my multi storey creations and the floors have always generated without any problem like the one I am having now with what is, in essence, the simplest of drawings. I have never, ever fiddled with framing or other facets of USA building methods and wouldn't have a clue as to where to begin. I have printed off the bumph about wall type definitions from the manual to see if I can make head or tail of the new way (the phrase 'why "fix" something that wasn't broken' comes to mind). I'll then start this drawing from scratch and if I still cock things up I'll give serious consideration to chuck this designing malarkey. It's not enjoyable any more.

I still maintain that the old wall configuration was easier. Top row was external layer and you worked downwards with any additional layers and then you put a dot next to the one you called your main layer. Strange though that, if I have cocked up the wall configurations to such a degree, the 3D image on my screen shows the building how I imagined it would look. That said (and thank you for your replies) both of you have ignored the main issue of my topic. That of the disappearing floor. BTW Eric, I tried to open your plan but I get a pop up saying that it can't be opened because it was written by a newer programme that I am currently running. I don't understand this as I used Pro 2016.

I received a letter a couple of days ago from my local authority advising that my next door neighbour has applied to have alterations done to his house and asking for objections, if any. I then went on to the authorities website to see what the alterations looked like and the only objection I had was the absolute blandness and total lack of imagination displayed by their designer. The house is a bog standard semi-detached council type dwelling erected under the “affordable” banner and sits among several others which all look the same. So I thought that I’d knock something up and slip it in his mailbox. I designed a “pod” made entirely out of SIPS panels – including the floor, ceiling and roof – which would sit on top of the existing garage and have slightly cantilevered edges to two sides. The external sides would be clad and the roof tiles would match the existing. Easy, you say? Then perhaps someone could tell me why the floor doesn’t show in the 3D elevation. I have tried everything to make it come up, even going as far as to place some invisible walls under the cantilevered edges in case they were the cause. Nothing worked. I have now run out of things to try. Perhaps I have forgotten something due to the fact that I have things going on in my life at the moment, both health and otherwise, with the result that my previous addiction to Home Designer has waned somewhat and I rarely use it now. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I must confess too to absolutely hating the way walls are done in 2016. The old way was much simpler. How do you specify which layer is the main one? Next door.plan

After getting a myriad of pop-up "warnings" and stuff I eventually contacted Support and am happy to say that my plans are now safely ensconced in 2016 Pro.

Thanks, Eric. I did think of uninstalling 2014 but was fearful that my plans might go with it such is my understanding of how computers work.