Cape Cod question - "Ignore Top (2nd) Floor" is driving me nuts!

[laurelll]

Hi all - 

 

New user here, and I have to say that reading the forum posts have been extremely helpful.  Both in getting advice but also learning that I'm not alone in spending way too many hours on getting my plan right!

 

I have HDS 2015.  And a Royal Barry Wills Cape Cod house with an attached garage.  Both the main house and the garage have very steep pitches - though different from each other (of course).  Both sides have second story full shed dormer additions (that are flush with the existing gable walls).  These are also differently pitched.  I actually think I'm close to being able to deal with building them - thanks to the advice here.

 

But I can't even get to that step.  In order to build the right roofline for both sections, I have to click "Ignore Top Floor" to build the roof based on the first floor walls.  The roof line literally starts on top of the first floor window frames and I can achieve this with adjusting the finished ceiling height on the 2nd floor down to zero.  This is the easy part.  Then I uncheck "Auto Rebuild Roofs" and proceed to work on tweaking the roof itself.  But I can't because it seems that having "Ignore Top Floor" checked means that it acts like there is no roof on the second floor, so I can't work from the second floor walls to make changes, and I can't work from the first floor to do what I need done on the second floor roof.  

 

But when I uncheck it... then all my second floor walls shoot up into the sky...  even if "Auto Rebuild Roofs" is unchecked.

 

This is killing me!  I would love to start work on my 10:12 pitch roof with the 2:12 pitch shed dormer and the 12:12 roof with the 1:12 dormer (and a floating 4.5' cantilevered overhang on the second floor and floating attached stairs (yes, you read that right).... and I actually think I can do those... IF my @#)%*@+ roof would stay where it should!!

 

What am I missing?

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Laurel

 

[solver]

There is a good amount of info here.

 

Here is an article that may help.

[Kbird1]

Pics help a lot Laurel , use the Windows 7 Snipit Tool in Accessories to get so screen grabs of what is happening in Suite , and pics of your actual house will/may help too. There are several threads on how to add pics if you don't know , just do a forum search. 

 

I am not sure what you are trying to do after you setup the second floor Roof with the ignore 2nd floor box , if you uncheck it the roof will rebuild the roof on top of the second floor walls regardless of the autobuild roof setting. You may have run into a limitation of Suite as it does not allow manipulation of Roof Planes like Pro does, but with more info it is likely we can find a "workaround".

 

It sounds like you have done some research here and read the Tutorials in the KB , so likely we need pics and more info to help.

 

Mick