Select Settings
> Building Locations, or click the Building Locations button
on the Basic View Control toolbar.
When you insert an element in your drawing, it is inserted on the current building location. It is important to define your building locations before inserting elements, since building locations are the key to organizing elements and inserting them at the correct height in your model.
If you used the House Builder Wizard to start your project, your main building locations are set up for you. Their settings depend on the selections you made in the House Builder Wizard. If you are drawing from scratch, the program’s default drawing templates have three pre-defined building locations: Foundation, Ground Floor, and Second Floor. You can change the settings for existing building locations as well as add and delete locations.
When you define building locations, you are basically doing two things:
setting the wall height for each floor (level) in your model
specifying where each floor is positioned relative to the ground (zero)
To define building locations:
Select Settings
> Building Locations, or click the Building Locations button
on the Basic View Control toolbar.
Below is a brief description of each building location property.
Number. A reference number for the location.
Name. The location’s name (e.g. Ground Floor).
Floor Level. Height of floor base above ground level (0).
Head Height. Height of tops of windows and wall openings relative to the floor level.
Ceiling Height. Height of underside of ceiling surface relative to the floor level.
Wall Height. Physical height of the walls on the location.
By default, if you are drawing from scratch, the Foundation location has a Floor Level of -1’, meaning the base of the foundation is positioned 1’ below ground level. (In other words, it is not a full basement.) The Wall Height of the Foundation location is 1’. Therefore, the top of the foundation wall will be situated at ground level.
By default, the Ground Floor and Second Floor locations each have their Wall Height set to 8’. The Floor Level of the Ground Floor is set to 1’. This means the top of the ground floor walls will be 9’ above the ground. The Floor Level of the Second Floor location is set to 10’. This leaves a 12” gap between the Ground Floor walls and Second Floor walls, which is needed to fit the floor structure of the ground floor. All of the exterior walls in the catalog have their Drop Exterior Face variable set to 12", which extends the base of exterior walls down by 12" to cover this gap.