double brick wall

[KarstenG]

I am a new HDD user, and from Denmark, Europe.

Over here we mostly build our houses out of brick walls - generally a double brick wall - with 190mm of insulation between (From Jan 1st 2006 - new building code - used to be 125mm insulation). That adds up at a 400mm thick wall.

In the wall specification I settled on using the double brick cavity wall, but in HDD it only has a thickness of 262mm - there is a thickness field where I assume that I sould be able to enter a new thickness, but it seem to be permanently greyed out.

Anyone know how to increase the thickness of the exterior walls in HDD?

[Dan Park]

Users of Home Designer PRO can also adjust the layers of walls to create more custom wall types.

[ebullock]

In Home Designer Deluxe 7...

Yoou could change the exterior wall default thickness to 15 3/4", then build all your exterior walls at that thickness. To change the default exterior wall one selects Edit, Default Settings, Wall. In the Wall Defaults dialog, one changes Exterior Wall to "Wood frame 16" OC" and a sub-dialog box appears where you can change your wall thickness -- but only to pre-defined thicknesses of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12" only!

[Granted it's a masonary wall, but except for the Bill of Materials being wacky, I don't think anything else in the program will be "off".]

Anyway, once you place a "wood frame 16" OC" wall in your plan, whatever thickness it is, you can -- in that specific wall's Wall Specification dialog -- reset the wall thickness to almost any amount: 15 3/4" worked anyway.

[Dan Park]

We do allow custom thickness walls in PRO 7. This was one of the features we removed to provide Deluxe and the other products at the lower price points.

In PRO you have the ability to customize the wall layers and thickness of each layer.

[KarstenG]

I undestand why you dont get layers - but not to be able to set thickness.

[Kilgore Trout]

Karsten,

You need to re-read ebullock's post above. You can change the wall thickness to be whatever you want in Home Designer Deluxe. You can only do this on a wall-by-wall basis though, and you must select the Wood Frame wall type first. The only thing that I think is missing is the ability to setup your default to any thickness you want so that you don't have to change each wall.

Pro gives you the additional ability to setup the thickness for each layer in all of the wall types, not just the Wood Frame walls.

[Dan Park]

Here are the Steps to create a 400 mm thick wall with no layers:

1) Draw a wall

2) Change the wall type to Wood Frame 450mm OC

3) Change the thickness to 400 mm.

While the brick cavity wall is a common wall type, the one we have included is not the exact wall type you desire. As you stated yourself this has changed just this year.

PRO 7 will allow you to create a custom wall type that will give you the exact layer control to produce the layered wall type you are after. The thickness function only applies to the wood frame wall and is grayed out in all our products when you have a layered wall type selected.

What we have found as we have expanded into various markets around the world is that there are litterally unlimited vairiations in construction tecniques and wall types.

[jacks]

Hi Dan and Karsten,

Interested to read the posts. I am a new HD Deluxe buyer, living in France where all the traditional houses in this region have 500-600mm thick stone walls.

This was one of the queries I originally had about HD Deluxe and understood that you could manipulate the walls to provide a pseudo-500mm thick wall.

This is possible and I accepted that but it is a bit constraining and can create other difficulties.

I am glad to realise from your posts that you can alter the thickness on the woodframe wall and that will help, but if it were possible to upgrade the HD deluxe package I'd be much happier!

[Dan Park]

We have some competetive rebates for the purchase of PRO here:

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/rebates/

If you are within 30 days of purchase a full refund is also available. Contact our sales department for more information.