Elevator Shaft (aka Hoistway)

[billgilbert]

My visionary wife thinks our new home ought to have provision for an elevator should one be needed in our hillside home, as the garage and hobby rooms are beneath the main level. After researching numerous elevator styles, and the hoistway requirements, I was able to give up some personal closet room as a compromise for a removable floor slab-to-attic 5' X 5' storage room. Special wall bracing is to be added later for the model ultimately chosen.

Most of the construction drawings recommend a slab recess of about 6 to 8" inside the hoistway. This provides a smooth transition to the cab floor. A classic model called the "Elevette", seems ideal if needed and I even found a couple that were salvaged for about $4k, plus freight. Installation extra, but I'll have the power boxes already in place, if ever. . .

My question then is:
How does one make the 5'X5'X8" recess IN THE SLAB? This lower level is Floor ZERO and is a conventional concrete slab. Making "Open Below" is out to daylight and inserting a shape doesn't reach to the walls at the main slab level.
This IS really only a technical detail that can be handled by the concrete contractor, but HD7 seems lacking this unique feature. Did I miss something?

[BB boy]

I'm pretty dumb at this, but have you tried making the floor level for that room only -6 or 8" just to see what would happen? I experimented with a closet in my model and dropped the floor the -6" and it worked.

[billgilbert]

Thanks BB boy. Yeah, l I had looked at the floor height first, and as you can see the daylight persists at the perimeter. Viewing from inside the hoistway.

As I said it is not a big issue. A couple of lines of text will fix it and the drawings will be professionally prepared (and debugged) by a my son's Civil Engineering firm anyway.

I'd kinda expected CA could do the trick but HD Pro7 has been such a great joy to work in I have absolutely no complaints. Always great.

[daydreamer]

Bill,

To eliminate the daylight, rename the room Closet and press F12.
Then click on the word Closet and change the name in text to Slab or Hoist Platform.

[BB boy]

Thanks Rick. Bill, another thing I've done if Rick's suggestion doesn't work, is do a Cross section elevation camera through each of the (4) elevations in the shaft, then zoom in on that elevation, clicked on the wall, then drag the move handles down to below the slab. It has worked for me when nothing else did, but Rick's idea should work. That's "F12" isn't it Rick?

[daydreamer]

You're welcome Bob,
It should work, I tested it.
Oops, forgot the F. I will edit my previous post.
Thanks Bob

[billgilbert]

Thanks everyone for doing my exercises. :-0
I'll try the suggestions again tonight. It was a closet before, and I could lower the floor alright. However the sills are intended to stay at the height of the main slab. I may use soffits to fill the "daylight" gaps too.
BTW the forum participation is really gratifying and everyone is really unselfish about this stuff. Appreciated.

[billgilbert]

OK its fixed. Sometime along the way I had clicked "Structure" - "Slab foundation for this room." Once that box was unchecked the walls filled in as they should. Guess ya always gotta try a few more things. I'll look at the cross sections tonight.
Appreciate all of the support.