Beginner Q - Exterior Wall Height

[Firewoman]

How do you change the wall height? (Suite 2015) I am designing offices in my existing warehouse which has 15' high exterior wall with windows all the way to the top. Some of the interior walls will go all the way up 15', and some only 10'. I can't figure out how to make the walls the correct height.

[DavidJPotter]

If the majority of your ceiling heights are to be a figure, you set that as your default "Ceiling Height" in "Edit - Default Settings- Floor-Structure Tab - Ceiling Height".

That is the most usual way to control how tall walls get. Once you have your rooms created and after your build roofs, you can then turn off "Auto Build Roofs" and once done you can then easily order selectively which rooms are to be 15' and which have a lowered ceiling of 10'.

 

DJP

[Firewoman]

Got it. Thank you.  I went to the default setting but went to walls. Didn't think to go to floors. Thank you again

[Kbird1]

yes all HD Software uses a "Room" or "Floor" default , if you open a Rooms' DBX you will also see the information David pointed you too under the Room's defaults.

 

You may also want to look at the Tutorial in the Knowledgebase on doing lofts or Mezzanine Floors , this is another method I have use for tall warehouse type structures . Essentially for you, you would have a 10' 1st level and a 5' 2nd storey with "open to below areas".

 

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00210/

[Firewoman]

Thanks Kbird1. And thanks for helping me find this post

[Firewoman]

you would have a 10' 1st level and a 5' 2nd storey with "open to below areas".

 

 

I actually tried this. But the problem is most of my interior walls are 15' and only some are 10'. Doing that makes all of the interior walls 10' now. This is so frustrating.

[Firewoman]

I figured it out and can't believe how easy it is, and for some reason I feel like I tried this in the beginning but it didn't work. Anyway... In the default setting I made the entire 1 st floor 15'. The walls that were to be 10' needed to be half walls adjusted to 10'. Pretty basic, but I still think you should be able to adjust the height of individual full height walls.

 

Now... can anyone tell me how to delete the second floor

[solver]

Build > Floor > Delete Current Floor

[Firewoman]

Got it Eric. Thank you!

 

And for any beginners in the future... when I did that, even though I had my project default setting ( edit>default setting>floor) set to no roof or ceiling over the room, it still showed one in 3D. You have to go to each individual room and remove them individually.

[Kbird1]

Good to see you got it sorted FW 

 

you might want to add your Version/Year etc to you Profile's signature so you don't have issues like at ChiefTalk in the future , Suite has limited features but there are many workarounds , so anyone answering future questions will be able to guide you to those knowing you have Suite from the start.

 

 

M.

[Firewoman]

Thanks Good idea.

[Firewoman]

Well so much for using half walls. If I could figure out how to attach an image on here I would, but here is a link anyway. This is what happens when you add doors to half walls, and when I saw what happened I remembered to post in the other forum. But his solution was with tools that are not available with Suite 2015.

 

https://stores.dc-sports.com//media/images/ugh.png

[Kbird1]

have a look at the second link in my sig. for posting pics/plans.... but look in the reply window bottom right for the more reply options button then the attach button 

 

post both then others can look and try things and offer some real help perhaps

 

M.

[Deezine]

Forget about walls and think "rooms".  CA tries to build rooms that can support a flat ceiling and roof.  Tweaking individual walls causes issues because the walls are shared by two DIFFERENT rooms with different ceiling heights and CA doesn't know what to do when the ceiling heights are different on opposite sides of the same wall.

 

Try this exercise:  Draw a large room set to 15' height.  Now draw four new walls to create a new room inside that room and set the ceiling for tne new room at 10'.  Now look at your dollhouse view.  You will see that even though the ceiling is set for 10', the walls appear to be 15' tall.  WHY?  Because these walls are SHARED with the room outside of it, and CA needs to build a flat ceiling so it draws them up to meet the outside room, even though technically they ARE specified structurally as 10' tall (if you have crown mouldings on you will see they are at 10' height.

. 

Next.  Build another room INSIDE that room, double click it to set the ceiling at 10'.  CA sees that the adjacent wall is "technically " 10' so allows a 10' room inside it.  You have worked around it and now have 10' room. 

 

So this leads to a workaround, using invisible walls to transition from your taller walled sections to your lower walled sections. There may be easier methodss, but this is the only one that comes to mind for me right now.

 

In your pic above, I would probably take the whole area surrounding the short rooms and set the height at 10', (which would lower the outside walls to 10' also)  Then I would draw an invisible perimeter wall BETWEEN the short rooms and the outside wall, then designate that space at 15' to bring the outside walls back up to 15.

[Firewoman]

Forget about walls and think "rooms".  CA tries to build rooms that can support a flat ceiling and roof.  Tweaking individual walls causes issues because the walls are shared by two DIFFERENT rooms with different ceiling heights and CA doesn't know what to do when the ceiling heights are different on opposite sides of the same wall.

 

Try this exercise:  Draw a large room set to 15' height.  Now draw four new walls to create a new room inside that room and set the ceiling for tne new room at 10'.  Now look at your dollhouse view.  You will see that even though the ceiling is set for 10', the walls appear to be 15' tall.  WHY?  Because these walls are SHARED with the room outside of it, and CA needs to build a flat ceiling so it draws them up to meet the outside room, even though technically they ARE specified structurally as 10' tall (if you have crown mouldings on you will see they are at 10' height.

. 

Next.  Build another room INSIDE that room, double click it to set the ceiling at 10'.  CA sees that the adjacent wall is "technically " 10' so allows a 10' room inside it.  You have worked around it and now have 10' room. 

 

So this leads to a workaround, using invisible walls to transition from your taller walled sections to your lower walled sections. There may be easier methodss, but this is the only one that comes to mind for me right now.

 

In your pic above, I would probably take the whole area surrounding the short rooms and set the height at 10', (which would lower the outside walls to 10' also)  Then I would draw an invisible perimeter wall BETWEEN the short rooms and the outside wall, then designate that space at 15' to bring the outside walls back up to 15.

Deezine - this was excellent advice. I saw invisible walls somewhere and wondered what the purpose of that was and explaining it like this helped tremendously. I will try to think rooms now. Thank you!

 

Mick - thanks for the info!

[Jo_Ann]

Follow the suggestion given in the HD knowledge base on how to build this type of room.

 

Kbird steered you to the right path (post #4).

[Kbird1]

It does work FW but have a look at Jo's second image for your situation which is different from the Warehouse I did below. I'll attach the plan from that so you can see the settings and have a play around etc.

 

Warehouse_Mezzanine Floor.plan

 

M.

[Firewoman]

Thanks Mick and Jo_ann. I have put that project aside for a little and started working on my house plan instead. I haven't had a chance yet to try your suggestion yet but thanks!