Custom Walls, Window/Door Trim, Imperial

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1

Hello!

I have been considering Plus Spec for some time—have been keeping up with your release notes and tutorials over the last few years.
I have a few questions that are keeping me from buying a subscription:

  1. Is it possible to create custom parametric wall types? The majority of the homes I design are super-insulated and require a double framed exterior wall. In order for the Pluspec tools to work for me, I need to create this type of wall and have the windows/doors cut through the entire assembly. Is this possible? Without having to draw each framed wall separately because this would involve having to cut the window/door holes manually in the interior most wall and manually align them with all of the windows and doors in the exterior wall. Here is a detail of that assembly:

double wall.jpg

  1. Will you have wood I-joists an option for the floor and roof rafters anytime? How about parallel chord trusses?

  2. I see on the tutorials that windows and doors have interior trim on them? Is this adjustable in size? Is there also exterior window/door trim?

  3. How about a separate parametric concrete foundation wall with a footer tool that is not part of the floor slab?

  4. Finally, Are all of the components in Pluspec in Imperial yet? door sizes? window sizes?

Thank you for the answers!

2

Hi mattd,

Thank you for your post.

I’ve answered your questions below but if you have any further enquiries we have a lot of videos on our website (the link below will take you to them) or the best point of contact is to email info@rubysketch.com.

http://plusspec.com/tutorials-splash/

  1. If you use the ‘Double Internal’ wall option in the Wall Tool and apply a different material for the internal and external sides of the wall the windows and doors will cut both frames and will will achieve a result like in the image you provided.

  2. The next version of PlusSpec will have more joist options (including I-joists) available to choose. There aren’t any parallel chord trusses in the software yet but thank you for the suggestion. I will take it back to the development team for further discussion.

  3. Yes the window and door trims are adjustable. There is a section at the bottom of the Window and Door Tools which you can enter the sizes for these and also select to have an external window/door trim.

  4. We have a Strip Footing Tool which I believe will do what you are after.

  5. Yes all components in PlusSpec (windows and doors included) are in Imperial which can be selected in the Settings Tool.

3

Hey mattd,

Further to Grant’s email, a picture can say it best.

PlusSpec Wall Section Illustration.jpg

This section/detail was created entirely from PlusSpec. The only additional elements were the lines (X) through timber and hatching/coloring the insulation (which, I could have illustrated in any number of ways). All in, this detail took me a little over 5 minutes, from opening SketchUp, drawing the PlusSpec walls, joists and window (with material selections), taking the section, using the PlusSpec hatching tool (I turned every layer to white), drawing the lines + painting the insulation, and then printing to JPEG.

This email is taking me longer…

Please note that I used the ‘Double Internal’ wall option for this construction type. The section is in perspective mode. From here I could easily modify any of the structure at any time (window headers, framing, joists, etc), which would update my section.

Hope this helps!