Deck beam placement "with joists"?

[MrPete]

In HD Pro, it's simple in all normal framing to set a Beam default of Placement "with joists" (ie joist and beam tops aligned, connected using a joist hanger.)

This is also a very popular construction technique for decks.

 

However, I don't see that option for deck framing. I'm feeling pretty dumb on this one -- it MUST be there somewhere, correct?

 

It's 100% a requirement for my project.

[solver]

I'd go buy an inexpensive surface to use as a drafting table, a T-square, a couple of triangles, some pencils and a good eraser and be done

 

Before you get too far into the basic structure, you might want to experiment with deck railings.

 

34 minutes ago, MrPete said:

Beam default of Placement "with joists" (ie joist and beam tops aligned, connected using a joist hanger.)

 

Done manually.

[MrPete]

9 hours ago, solver said:

I'd go buy an inexpensive surface to use as a drafting table, a T-square, a couple of triangles, some pencils and a good eraser and be done

 Oh boy does that bring back memories... True Story:

 

Back in 1981, I was standing on a ladder in a SiValley nonprofit organization, tossing network cable through the false ceiling, and grumbling
"why am I wasting my time getting all hot doing grunt work like this? Anybody could do this!" ...
A guy walked in the room with a (very coarse) map of Texas created on a TRS-80.
He said "wouldn't it be great if we could show our research data on maps like this!"

MrPete, with a bad snarky attitude, said "can't be all THAT hard."
He stuck a finger in my face and said "you're the one to make it happen!"

 

I decided to do that, but for years I honestly thought it was a pretty dumb idea.
Why go to all the trouble of making maps on a computer when you could just photocopy a map outline and used colored pens to fill it in?

 

Eight years later  ... we finished creating the first small-computer GIS.
And by then I understood why it was useful to do the analytics on a computer.
(We could learn things from data in geographic context that you'd never learn any other way.)

 

[MrPete]

9 hours ago, solver said:

Done manually.

I'm getting that idea.

 

At least it can be done manually in HD Pro, as long as I don't use the "Deck" style of framing

 

At this point, my impression of HD Pro is:

• Very flexible software
• If the automated features fit your need, use them
• Otherwise, do it manually and you can probably get close to what's needed through some kind of workaround
• And most likely it will be less work than doing it on paper or with a raw CAD system

[MrPete]

Ah HA! I was getting quite confused, due to what appeared to be a software bug. Along the way, I discovered a real, yet minor, bug (a missing URL for a KB article. ) so I called tech support.

 

A brief discussion w/ a very helpful tech support guy led to a crucial insight and understanding of how ALL of these applications function with respect to Decks. 

The following applies to both Home Designer and Chief Architect:

1. The location/area of the surface (aka "floor") of a deck (ie the decking materials and surface) is 100% defined by the "walls" (railing etc) of the deck.
2. There is NO WAY to manually regenerate the deck surface, nor any way to edit the edges manually. Only the "walls" can be adjusted.
3. Therefore, if "Auto Regenerate Deck Framing" is unchecked ("Deck" tab of "Deck" room type), not only is the framing never regenerated, the deck surface will not regenerate either, even if the walls/rails are moved.

Thus, all walls and the edge of the deck must be fully and accurately specified before tweaking any aspect of the framing, foundation, supports, etc.