Balcony to Outdoor Room creates a void in ceiling

[veranico]

I am just starting with Home Designer. Attempting to design a Veranda Room @1.75 stories adjacent to 2.0 story and 2nd floor to have a balcony that overlooks in to Veranda space below.

I set up default ceiling heights in the Veranda Room separate from the adjacent house. When I project a balcony in to the Veranda Room from the 2nd floor it punches out the Veranda ceiling surface (its own roof remains up higher matching to the 2nd floor plate in the adjacent MBR).

I tried to lower the ceiling height in the Balcony "room" by inserting the same value 'E' Rough Ceiling of the Veranda Room but I can't get the two planes to align/merge.
 
Is there a way to drawn a balcony element without any roof automatically built in?

 

I saw the thread about using Room Divider/ Open to Below but my defaults are not set up this way.

 

Probably----I'm overlooking some simpler way to do this or have incorrectly set it up?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[DavidJPotter]

With anything except Home Designer Pro, you must be utterly precise with presettings to guide the roof generator to a desired result. In order to do that you need to understand well how Home Designer is programmed to achieve results, guessing does not count and if fact just makes things harder than first finding out what to do by way of careful study of your Reference Manual found under "Help".

 

You should also study "Roof types" found in the build roof dialog which explains the necessary pre settings for each roof type. Rather than trying to learn all you need to know as you go is almost impossible, so I recommend that you practice and learn on simple test plans until your grasp of the software is sufficient to then do what you want to do.

 

DJP

[DavidJPotter]

It is not completely clear what you do wish to achieve. Posting a copy of your plan helps but for any useful help to be offered it must be crystal clear what you wish to do. No one knows that better than you, so please make it clear first, post a copy of your plan so that others can then help with some certainty.

 

DJP

[solver]

A Balcony room type by default has no ceiling or roof.

Change the settings (check the options) in the room structure panel to have a Roof Over This Room and Ceiling Over This Room.

Also make sure the ceiling height (absolute elevation) matches the space the balcony is in.

[Jo_Ann]

This knowledge base article will give you the info that you need.

 

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00210/using-open-below-rooms-to-define-an-opening-to-a-lower-floor.html

 

You 1st need to set the floor 1 'veranda' ceiling heights to a normal height.

Then build floor 2 over the existing 'veranda' walls.  Follow the tutorial for setting the 'open below' room

over most of the 'veranda'.

[veranico]

Problem solved; thanks! Changing the ceiling height to match the Veranda per Solver turned out to be the easiest solution; the plans had too many objects built in to start over with room defaults.

It took me a while though to figure out that in Room Specs dialogue box the line item Ceiling B on conventionally set up 2nd floor is a rough dimension that equals Rough Ceiling E in an open high volume space; I wish the dialogue box would be more clear on this.

 

It is true if you stare hard at the diagram in the Specs box the letter B appears to be centering on the rough framing line on 2nd floor, but this is hard to discern/confirm visually. Why not just label it Rough Ceiling B I wonder?

JoAnn is right that her suggestion would have been the best way to start out for an interior view and then build in a dropped ceiling. The drawback there is how to solve building plates on the exterior massing-? I will always start off in future this way if only building interiors.

Thanks to all for the excellent guidance and references!