Room Types

Once your floor plan is laid out, each room should be assigned a Room Type on the General tab of the Room Specification dialog. See "General Tab". When you assign a room type, a label with the room name displays in floor plan view.

The Room Type applies appropriate structural and display properties to the room.

You can edit the text of a room label in floor plan view, but the type of room originally assigned remains until it is changed in the Room Specification dialog. See "Editing Room Labels".

Available Room Types

Interior - Living, Dining, Family, Kitchen, Nook, Bath, Master Bath, Master Bedrm, Bedroom, Study, Office, Entry, Hall, Closet, Dressing, Storage, Laundry, and Utility

Effects of Room Types

The program applies specific structural and display properties to rooms depending on the assigned Room Type.

Living Area

All interior type rooms are included in Living Area calculations; exterior and hybrid rooms are not.

Ceilings and Roofs

Interior rooms have a ceiling and roof above them unless specified otherwise.

Exterior rooms are assumed to be open to the outside and do not generate a roof above them.

Attic rooms are ignored by the program's automatic roof generator.

Garage, Slabs, and Porches are treated like exterior rooms in all cases except that they generate a ceiling and a roof above them.

Floors and Foundations

Open Below is a unique type of interior room. It has no floor platform and can be used for defining stairwell openings.

Exterior walls of rooms default to create the foundation type specified in the Foundation Defaults dialog.

Walls that define the garage have a foundation under them defined by the Foundation Defaults dialog with a concrete slab at the top of stem wall or grade beam.

The garage floor displays in 3D with the foundation floor, not the first floor.

Defining a room as Slab causes the floor platform thickness to equal the slab thickness value in the Foundation Defaults dialog.

Courts, decks and balconies do not generate foundations.

Doors and Windows

A window placed in a wall between an exterior room and an interior room always faces out toward the exterior.

Windows placed between interior rooms generate a warning message.

Door placed between interior and exterior type rooms display threshold lines.

Interior doors do not display thresholds.

Open Below rooms are treated as interior rooms for window and door placement.

Electrical

The Auto Place Outlets tool adds outlets automatically to all interior rooms except bathrooms. Only one outlet over each sink is added for a bathroom.

The Auto Place Outlets tool places fewer outlets in hybrid rooms.

The Auto Place Outlets tool does not place outlets in Porch rooms.

The Auto Place Outlets tool does not place outlets in exterior type rooms.

The Auto Place Outlets tool does not place outlets in Open Below rooms.

Any outlet manually placed in an exterior room automatically becomes a waterproof outlet designed for exterior use.

Trim and Molding

Moldings are not automatically drawn in exterior rooms.

Baseboards and chair rails are not drawn in Open Below rooms, but crown molding does.

Plan Check

Plan Check

uses the room type and its characteristics for basic plan checking. For example, a closet does not need a smoke detector but a bedroom does. See "Plan Check".