How to shorten walls without bringing the ceiling down with it

[TGYoung]

I'm working on a drawing where I established 3 interior walls to enclose a gas fireplace: 2 walls about 25' long butted against an exterior wall and 5' apart, and a third wall  "closing the box" that's about 5' long.  When I drew these walls I left them at 8' tall, the same as the walls in the rest of the house.

Now I'd like to make these three walls only about 5' tall, essentially converting the "box" into a surround/mantle for the gas fired fireplace.  But when I do this the ceiling in the whole house descends to the height of the 3 walls. 

What's the way to handle this situation?  Even if I delete all the walls and draw them in using a height less that 8' the ceiling in the entire house descends to their height.  Is there anyway to signal to TurboFloorPlan that even though the structure looks like a small "room" in 2D the ceiling should not change?

[Patricia G.]

Hi there,

In TFP, in each room the ceiling elevation is the height of the shorter wall in the (enclosed) perimeter of the room. Notice that the height is determined by room, not for the entire house.

Now, if you wish to create a fireplace with height= 60" inside a room with height= 96", maintaining the ceiling elevation at 96", you have 2 methods:
1 - As the height is determined by room, create the fireplace as a little room by enclosing the space (four walls, for example). see attached.
2 - If you don't have an enclosed room,  select the room(s) => unselect the option "Show ceiling" (Properties tab) => create the ceilings using the Floor tool (Floor tab) => select the ceiling(s) => set the elevation(s) as desired.

Patricia G.

[TGYoung]

Hi Patricia:

I don't have any difficultly using a "stand alone" 4-walled room per your example, but in this case the "room's" 4th wall is the exterior wall of the house.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "If you don't have an enclosed room" but I did try selecting the fireplace "room", unselecting the option "Show ceiling" and then clicked on one of interior walls and set it at 5'.  Again all ceilings of the house descended.  (Picture 1, Picture 2).

I tried removing the wall running parallel to the exterior wall (Picture 3) - not sure why one of the 25" walls returns to 8' height - but after bringing that now 8' wall down to 5' I then attempted to draw a new 5' wall parallel to the exterior wall the ceiling descended again. 

Do I have to draw a "stand alone" room of 4 interior walls to make this work?

Thanks.

[Patricia G.]

Hi there,

Let's review a few concepts:

- In TFP, a room is an enclosed space, with the walls perfectly linked. This means that if you have a room with a kitchen in a corner (for example) and the kitchen is not enclosed, it is not a room.
- This may seem obvious  , but don't forget that the walls have 2 sides, therefore, in the situation that you show in your pictures #1 and #2, the walls around the fireplace are part of the "fireplace room" as well as the "big room". This means that when you low the walls to 5', you are lowering the ceiling of the "fireplace room" as well as the "big room".

In other words, if you wish to use the Auto ceiling feature, you must create an enclosed "room" for the fireplace, as I did in the image "Ceiling height 2.jpg" attached. As you can see in the image, there is a ceiling at elevation= 5' for the "fireplace room" (red arrow) and a ceiling at 96" for the "Living room" (blue arrow).

The second option is using the Manual ceiling option (see image "Manual Ceiling.jpg attached) => In the Living room unselect the option "Show Ceiling" => use the Floor tool (outlined in green in the image) => outline the desired ceiling perimeter and set the thickness (green arrows) => set the elevation (outlined in yellow in the image) => the elevation of the new ceiling will be: the walls' height (96") + the floor thickness (4") - the ceiling thickness (1") = 99". In this way, you will have the  fireplace ceiling with the walls at 5' (red arrow) and the room ceiling with the walls at 8' (green arrows).

Hope this helps.

Patricia G.

Patricia G.

[TGYoung]

Thank you Patricia.  I was able to pretty closely duplicate  the two drawings you posted in your last reply so I think I have a basic understanding of the situation.   Thanks too, for the "why" of the problem I was facing as well as the "how" of fixing it.

Frequently these fireplaces have a "room" that exists both inside and outside the main exterior wall of the house.   I'll see if I can get that to work.

Tom

[Patricia G.]

Hi Tom,

You're welcome! 

Another possibility: You can add a fireplace as a 3D Object. You will find several models in the Furnishing Library => Fireplaces. Or you can build your own model using the 3D Custom Workshop Power Tool.

Patricia G.