Making a Sloped Ceiling

[ahr8tch]

Me again

I have designed a very large room.  The longer walls are 12' and 22' tall respectively, and ~34' long while the perpendicular walls slope from the 12' outer wall to the 22' inner wall over a 24' span.  I want the sloped ceiling to avoid a tunnel or cave-like atmosphere and to add volume to the room.

I've experimented with the cathedral ceiling but must be doing something wrong because I can't seem to get away from a center arch.

Suggestions?

TIA
rh

[Doug.S]

Perhaps I don't understand your problem as a cathedral ceiling normally follows the roof slopes and unless you have a curved/arch roof, the inside cathedral ceiling should be sloped at an angle like the roof.....and have a peak line (underside of a "v" bottom).

Maybe if you post the .bld file and a .jpg or two showing the problem and what is desired (sketch = OK) we all can help better.

Alternatively you might want to try a "tray" ceiling....experiment with ceiling types...or height of the ceiling higher than the walls to make a partially flat ceiling?

[ahr8tch]

Perhaps a better way to state what I want is to say that I have parallel walls of unequal height - 12' and 22'.  The space is rectangular with the other two walls sloping from 12' to 22'.  I want a ceiling on these walls that follows their upper contours.

In the attached .jpg I've shown the ceiling in question in red.  I left the longer walls opaque and made the sloped walls transparent.  I know how to construct this type of vaulted ceiling but I don't know how to draw it in TFP.

Thanks for your help.

rh

ps.  The taller wall adjoins the second floor while the shorter wall is the outside wall; however there is a porch that extends the roof line another ~12' beyond the exterior wall.  There is plenty of cubic volume above a 10/12 pitch to accommodate this as only a portion of the shorter wall is exterior.

pps.  The second jpg shows how the space sits under the roof.  Again the part I'm trying to draw is colored in red while the roof is slate gray.  The porch overhang is also apparent.

[Allan Chesney]

Like Doug I don't quite see where the problem is.    You should be able to select the ceiling, click three of the red arrows (turn green) and set the Degrees to 90. The ceiling will then slope at the degrees you have on the fourth side.

Allan

[kjstap]

I am trying to do somewhat the same thing only with the higher side open. is it even possible to create a roof that is not a hip or other fancy style. I just want a flat roof starting at 10' to 22'. In front of the 22' I will be needing another roof but i have to start with what should be simple. The answers you get should help me although so far it looks like the more experienced seemed to think the beginners to the program should understand how to do these things.
Ken

[Allan Chesney]

Ken,

Sorry if some of the replies have been 'over your head' so to speak.  Most of the users of TurboFloorplan have previously used earlier versions, so know the basics. If you don't understand something just ask and someone will come to your aid. Because TFP is a totally new version (different architecture) we are all learning but the experience with previous versions certainly helps.

To create a roof that slopes one way you need to set three sides of it to gable, so, click the roof and click the arrows  - they are green when selected and red when not. Set 3 of them so they are green, right click and select Properties. On the Basic tab click the little picture of a roof and select the Gable in the next dialog box (This is where you find the different roof styles!).  Changing three sides to Gable (90 degrees -vertical) means that the roof slopes one way.  Now you can select the sloping side of the roof and set the Degrees you want the slope to be. 

When you insert the roof it is automatically at the wall height.  The Overhang will go lower than the wall height.  You can extend the overhang to make a single slope attached to the same roof.  If you want the sloping roof all at a lower height than the main wall height, then you can insert it on another Location.

As a new user it would be good to go to Settings/Program Setttings and change things as needed so the program works like you want or uses defaults you want.  You may not want to change anything (except where you live maybe) but at least you will know what can be changed if necessary. Also get used to Settings/Locations.  These settings determine how high your walls, doors, ceilings etc are for each Location (level, floor etc).  So..If you wanted a roof at a lower level, then add a location with lower walls and insert the roof on that Location.  In 3D it will all join together.  In your case the Location should be set to 10' since that is your lowest wall.  By default the walls are set to extend to the roof so the 22' wall should work automatically.

Hopefully that makes some sense.  Try practising on a new simple project then you wont mess up the proper one. If you don't understand anything just ask.

Allan

[ahr8tch]

Allan,

Your response indicates that I should set 3 sides of the ROOF to 'gable'.  My room has only 1 exterior wall and that wall is the short wall where I do NOT want a gable end; therefore, the ceiling rests on 3 interior walls, 1 exterior wall, and the roof structure extends past the 1 exterior wall by 12'.  (Columns that will support the eave span are not depicted.   In fact, my structure has hip roofs all around; the drawings depict only one room of a much larger structure and the remainder of the structure is omitted. I showed only how the room would sit under PART of the roof.  I also showed the allowance for floor joisting on the opposite side of the 22' wall, the ceiling joist level on the 2nd floor and the roof ends where it will peak over the structure.  The roof span is 72' on 10' exterior walls with 10/12 pitch.  I showed how the roof structure extends past the exterior wall (a rear wall of the structure) to form a porch/lanai.

I managed to insert a ceiling.  Because there is a 10' wide opening in the tall (22') wall, I had to figure out how to limit the ceiling to the rectangular area.  I did this by drawing a wall on the Ground Floor and giving its 'top/level' attribute a value of zero.  I cannot however find any means to set the angle at which a CEILING - not a roof - attaches to a wall at any angle other than 90 degrees.

Regards,
rh

ps
Here is another drawing attempting to clarify the situation.  It is just a line drawing to give an idea of the problem.  View it as a section or cut-away wherein the point of interest is the red area representing the vaulted ceiling.  The near wall shows only the lower, first floor portion with the second floor, sloped near wall omitted to give a view of the vaulted ceiling (red).  You can see that there are other portions of the structure.  The brick walls indicated where other parts of the structure are attached; the lanai faces an area with exterior structure walls on each side and open at the end.  Remember, only part of the structure is depicted.

[ahr8tch]

Ken,

If you will ping me privately with your addy, I'll send you a simple TFP file with a shed roof on 22' and 10' walls.  The file will give you all the parameters of roof and wall to explore.  My example doesn't have the roof angle quite right but should serve as something to go by.

rh (rabbithutch@hot.rr.com)

[Doug.S]

I managed to insert a ceiling.  Because there is a 10' wide opening in the tall (22') wall, I had to figure out how to limit the ceiling to the rectangular area.  I did this by drawing a wall on the Ground Floor and giving its 'top/level' attribute a value of zero.  I cannot however find any means to set the angle at which a CEILING - not a roof - attaches to a wall at any angle other than 90 degrees.

The way to make a ceiling be something other than 90 deg to the walls (not parallel to the floor) is to use a "cathedral" ceiling...where the ceiling then conforms to the roof......and you need a "lean to" roof (gabled on 3 sides).

To make that happen in your design, you need to make clever use of different "building locations" (like layers) in which (with collision detection off sometimes needed) you can have more than one roof over the same space...at least I think it can be done. Certainly rooms and stuff can overlay/overlap/occupy the same space OK but not sure you can force two roofs in the same area, one over the other....each on a separate "location".

Alternatively you can make a fake ceiling by using another object such as a rug or "member" or other flat rectangular thin shape, sized to fit the room, at the angle desired, and raised above the floor to look like a ceiling.  This would seem to be the easier way to achieve your effect.  Works well visually but may not be good for framing views on interior walls or an automatic accurate construction materials list.

PS also note you can insert a celing by room, by perimeter, or by selecting pionts....use whichever is advantageous....maybe try each on a test project.

[Allan Chesney]

Doug,

This is another improvement with V12 - the cathedral ceiling is independent of the roof. Just set 3 edges ve the ceiling to 90 Degrees and it will slope whether there is a roof or not.

You can put roofs on different locations in the same space.

Allan

[Doug.S]

Thanks,

I did not know about the independent ceiling from the roof.

[ahr8tch]

Allan and Doug,

I finally got my ceiling to behave as I wanted it.  I think I had a conceptual roadblock because it took me SEVERAL reads to understand that the ceiling angle must be 90 degrees on 3 of 4 walls.  I was trying to set the ceiling angle for both the short and tall walls in addition to putting slope in the end walls.  I also had some wall anomalies that I hadn't noticed before.

The long and short of it is that I found it possible - even simple and easy now that I know how - to make the vaulted ceiling I wanted.

Thanks for your help, fellows.  Especially for being patient with me and persistent at providing guidance.

rh

[Allan Chesney]

Not a problem.  Glad to be able to help.

Allan

[Doug.S]

Just set 3 edges ve the ceiling to 90 Degrees and it will slope whether there is a roof or not.Allan

I did not follow those words at first either....but found the drop down list choice of "gable" which is the same equivalent result and now 90 degrees makes sense too.

And (for others reading this thread) I could only select the ceiling edges in a 3D view and could not in the 2D floorplan view.

[wbone73099]

I'm trying to create a sloped ceiling also.  When I do as directed (in earlier post) my software crashes.  I have created a "test" project with only the room I'm trying to put a ceiling on, still crashes. Is there a patch for the software?  Thanks  Wendy