Roof/Wall Height

[JoyA]

I'd appreciate anyone who can help me here - I'm a somewhat experienced amateur user, using Home Designer Interiors 2014, but I cannot figure out how to fix the roof over one room. I'll let the pictures show the problem:



The second floor part where the roof is lowered is all one room. The snowy picture is the back side of the house. Here are pictures of the inside:



So the wall heights are all different. What do I need to change to bring the roof down?

And obviously there are other problems, like that the garage is floating above the ground, I'll deal with that, but I cannot figure out this roof thing...

Thank you in advance.

[Kbird]

looks like you have the wall heights for the room closest to the camera set wrong (as well?) , the photo shows it different from your cam view where it looks as though it is 2 storey's high but is actually 1 1/2 ? . I had to look a few times at each image to figure out what didn't look right but if that room/roof is lower it will look more like the photo.

if the garage foundation/slab is built ? then the height maybe set the same as the main floor of level one , so you would need to set a negative value ...say -12" depending on how many steps you have from the garage floor up into the house floor, eg 12" is (2) x 6" steps.

M.

[JoAnn]

You need to set the finished ceiling height of the room over the garage to '0', and rebuild the roof. When you NEVER have to rebuild the roof again, uncheck auto build roof (roof icon box) and then you can raise the ceiling in that room, and NOT until you have reached that stage.

[JoyA]

looks like you have the wall heights for the room closest to the camera set wrong (as well?) , the photo shows it different from your cam view where it looks as though it is 2 storey's high but is actually 1 1/2 ? . I had to look a few times at each image to figure out what didn't look right but if that room/roof is lower it will look more like the photo.

if the garage foundation/slab is built ? then the height maybe set the same as the main floor of level one , so you would need to set a negative value ...say -12" depending on how many steps you have from the garage floor up into the house floor, eg 12" is (2) x 6" steps.

M.

Hi Mick, Thanks for your reply. Yes, you have identified the problem. The roof in the model is too high. But it is not 1.5 stories, it is 2 stories, but the walls of the room over which the roof is lower are cut off by the roof. I looked up "dormers" because it's sort of like dormers, except that there is only one "dormer", sort of, here is a picture:


Both the side wall (side of garage) and the back wall (snowy photo) are gable walls, I think, except the back wall is sort of like a dormer but it extends all the way down to the garage. The front wall (with no window) might be a knee wall? I'm not sure. I don't see any option to change individual wall heights.

Here is the plan, if it helps - I made some notes on it.


And about the floating garage, actually the whole house is 3' off the ground, but the garage is at ground level. So the garage is 0 and I moved up the rest of the house 3'. I also use Landscape and Deck 2014 for garden plans and I think the problem with the floating garage is that the grade of the land is off - I need to raise it, I think. But I'm more concerned with the roof thing because I really have no idea how to fix it.

[JoyA]

Hi JoAnn, Thanks for your help. I tried what you suggested, but it got worse. See pic:


I did follow your instructions, I even tried it twice, so I'm not sure what happened...

One error I realized I had was that I had the room set as a cathedral ceiling, but it actually has a 10' 6" ceiling, because there is an attic above. I'm not sure how that affects any of this.

[JoAnn]

I attempted to replicate your house using your pictures, but of course the measurements are not exact.
I followed the instructions I gave for the room over the garage, and this is how it turned out.
I used only the basic building tools, that I believe your software version also has.

I also added the interior knee walls.

Keep trying until you get it.

[JoyA]

I attempted to replicate your house using your pictures, but of course the measurements are not exact.
I followed the instructions I gave for the room over the garage, and this is how it turned out.
I used only the basic building tools, that I believe your software version also has.

I also added the interior knee walls.

Keep trying until you get it.

Well thank you. That's beautiful. Better in one day than I have achieved in a year of working on this plan. I'm apparently looking in the wrong forum for help. Thanks everyone anyway. I'll go look for a "Home Designer for Dummies" site.

[JoAnn]

Open a new practice plan to play with. Just 4 walls. Add a 2nd floor. Open up the 2nd floor room dbx and lower the 'finished ceiling height' to 0". Rebuild the roof and take a 3d look. Draw the knee walls. Open up their wall boxes, and designate them as 'kneewalls'. NOW uncheck 'auto build roof'. Highlight the room again, and in the room structure dbx tab, raise the 'finished ceiling height' to 10'6". Take a 3d look at the exterior and use the full camera to view the interior. Can you see how this changed things?

Both of these help files in in the help database might help:

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/...icle/KB-00904/

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/...icle/KB-00358/

[JoyA]

This is why I felt like I was in the wrong forum: I really did not understand knee walls and the Help Index was not helping me understand. However, my husband does know these things (I should have asked him first). So now I understand knee walls. We also discovered that the garage was 4 feet shorter than it actually is (my bad, I was too lazy to measure it), but I knew the upstairs room dimensions were right, well once it was shifted over 4 feet, that made it possible to have the knee wall in the right place upstairs. So now I think I have adjusted all the walls, but I get these errors for all the walls I have specified as knee walls when I try to build the roof:



I will try again what you suggested if I can get past these errors.

[JoAnn]

Now I'm confused. You seem to have changed a lot of your dimensions.
It also appears that you have removed the exterior walls at the top left corner, and these are needed for the bottom of the roof to rest upon.
Knee walls are meant to be interior walls. Fix that and the error messages will probably go away.
Google 'knee wall' and look at all the images shown to get a better idea of what they are.

Also, a section of your front porch (in the real house pic) shows that it does not have a roof over it (the door area on the side wall of the garage). You should partition it with an invisible railing, so that you can select that area of the deck and specify 'no roof over this room'. That section of porch roof might interfere with the roof that you are trying to fix.

[Kbird]

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself , I am a Contractor and have been messing with the software for 5-6 yrs and still get frustrated every time I use it looks like Joanne has you on the right track , she does know her way around this software for sure and you'll surely be happy when you "get it right"

When I mentioned 1 1/2 storey's I was thinking about the 2nd KB article JoAnn pointed you too ,as to how HD does these type of 2 storey rooms, I wasn't aware of the Garage Bonus Room Tip Article.... As JoAnn said I always use a new practice plan to try these things out on 1st ( and save them) before trying the technique on a backup copy of the original plan in case I mess up just goto File>Save As> add a _1 to end of file name once plan is open and you will be working on the backup plan instead, the titlebar of the HD window will tell you the name of the file you are working on. If it gets too messed up just close the plan ,without saving it , then open it and try again , it will be the same plan as when you 1st "save as" _1. When you get it write save it , then you can "Save As" back to the Current name by deleting the _1 from the name and okaying overwrite the existing file, you will then have a good file plus a good backup in case of future problems.

M.

[JoyA]

Thank you Mick and JoAnn, yes I changed the dimensions but I need to go out and measure again to make sure this is all right. And I will look at pictures - I understood a knee wall to be an interior wall where there isn't an exterior wall - because the roof is outside the knee wall - I thought the roof rested on the first story exterior walls, but perhaps the exterior 2nd story walls are just very short? I will look up pictures. Thank you for all your help, and also about saving backup copies and etc. - I have discovered that this software does not "undo" very well so I have messed up designs (have used versions of CA software for years on our previous house), so that is a good idea as I'd hate to lose all my work on this one! Thank you again, I will post again once I make some progress.

[Kbird]

Under Edit>Perferences>General ( click on word general) you can set the number of Undo's to anything you want eg 20 or 30 if you prefer . The is also a folder in you HD Data folder ( usually in My Documents) called Archives , which should contain automatic saves HD makes as you work on a file if you really need to "step back" from a major booboo. on the next tab of general ( above is file management and you can set the time between autosaves too ..eg every 5 mins. At least all these options are available to me On Pro10.

Accurate dimensions will make things easier for sure , and make it easier to make it look like the real thing.

M.

[JoAnn]

Joy...
Some of the exterior dimensions that you changed helped make the roof conform better to match the real pic of the house.
This is what your walls should look like.
The light green dotted lines are the roof planes.
The black dotted lines are the sloped ceilings.