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  1. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Planet Earth
    Posts
    8

    UnHappy I would like to jump on my pony wall and gallop away!

    I have just spent the last 7 days locked in my computer room, only leaving for the necessities (food, bathroom etc) trying to get Chief to draw my basement correctly. I have read all three manuals no less than 4 times each, I have been over every nook and cranny on the defaults setup and I finally wiped everything and started with little test box floors cut with the 3D camera. After using the trial and error (and take a look ) method I think that I might finally have it figured out (I have said this no less than a dozen times).

    The problem is, my basement walls are pony walls with a framed short wall on top. There is a slab foundation sitting on the footing (I think, forgot my z-ray glasses in my other jacket), also, the basement is a 2/3s basement with the upper wall continuing all around the perimeter with a shorter pony wall in the front third making a crawl space with some posts and beams.

    Anyway, setting this up should have been, not easy, but not impossible. X2 seems to deal with basement stem walls differently than X4, which is much improved but still confusing. The manual is pathetic in it's lack of specific information about reference points. Days worth of head banging could have been avoided with a couple of reference pictures showing the dimensions referred to in the manual. With some of the dimensions you measure down from the 0 point on floor 1 and some you apparently measure up or down from either the basement floor or ceiling, I'm still not sure. Also X2 measures the stem wall from the top of the outside footing to the top of the sub floor but X4 measure to the bottom of the basement ceiling (or the bottom of the 1st floor), I think.

    In the wall type dialog box, where you set up the pony walls, there are 2 boxes where you are supposed to set up the default height of the concrete foundation wall and the height of the upper section but no mater what you put in one the second box repeats it so both numbers are locked together. Also it's not clear what the number is although one place in the manual says it's the distance from floor 0 to the top of the pony wall. Also it doesn't mention the sill plate (like in X2).

    I am used to thinking in programming terms and have spent 45 or so years reading technical manuals and learning different programs but it has been a long time since I have run into such a convoluted head banger such as this. I even tried watching some of the you tube instructional videos and almost busted a gut watching a pro saying things like "you just set this and that and...no wait...you do this then....no that's not it....just a minute I think it's this...that should work...lets try this". I have to say that I felt a bit better after that. At lest I know I'm not the only one having problems.

    To top it off I have an attached garage with a monolithic slab that sticks out behind the house and bends into an ell shape which contains a deck with a hot tub. The garage has a vaulted ceiling with a partial ceiling over the garage door to hold the door tracks and is also storage. I drew the plans by hand on my old trusty drawing board with my K&E drafting arm and drafting tools. I build the whole thing in almost the time I have spent trying to get Chief to draw my foundations correctly.

    Last (but not least), is my balloon framing on floor 1. Typical 1913 walls with the ceiling rafters sitting on a notched 1x6 stringer and nailed into the side of the 10' 2x4s about 8" down from the top plate creating a short wall in the attic that the roof sits on. I see balloon framing in the wall General dialog box but it appears to have no visible function because it does not affect the ceiling rafters in any visible way. The only way I can see to drop the ceiling is to add a second floor 8" tall or use the soffit feature to drop the ceiling.

    I haven't had much time to explore the roof area yet, being stuck in the basement and garage for so long. At least I have spent so much time exploring the defaults that there isn't much that I don't know about the defaults. Some of my walls have been firred out to 6" for more insulation and I turned the bathroom into a walk-in closet and the back corner bedroom into a master bath suite, complete with bubble tub, vaulted ceiling and HDTV behind the mirror over the tub (so I can sit on the john and catch the news in the morning). BTW, you should see my PEX manifold in the basement. I mounted it into an ABS network box so it looks like an electric panel for water. All of the AV equipment and house server are in the attic in a communications rack. I also moved the gas furnace into the attic to make room in the basement for 2 bedrooms, a second kitchen, a laundry room a second master bath and a home theater. All of which needs to be on these blue prints so the inspector can let me finish this monster project.

    Now if I can just get this foundation to see things my way, the rest is a piece of cake. The real reason I am spending so much time learning the ins and outs of Chief is so I can design my next abode, the one I will live in until the reaper comes for me. I hope I can finish it before then. It would be nice to live in a home that I'm not remodeling (I think that's what my third wife said just before she left me).

    This has been a welcomed break but now I must get back to the task at hand... finishing this plan.
    MisterFixIt1952,MisterFixIt1952@Gmail.com
    Jack of All Trades, Master of Most.

    "I'm not getting older, I'm getting better.....
    Some day I'll be so much better, they will plant me to see if I grow".

    X5 on an Asus P5K-E, Intel Core Duo 2.6 Ghz, 4Gb ram 18Tb HDs, Win 7 running on a 120Gb SSD, NVidea FX3700, (2) 21" LG LED monitors

 

 

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