Turning off the Display of Attic Walls

The information in this article applies to:

QUESTION

I would like to hide the automatically generated Attic walls by the program so that I do not see them in my 2D floor plan view. How can I accomplish this task?

ANSWER

In Chief Architect, walls are built between the floor and ceiling platforms of the current floor. When the program detects an open space between a wall and the roof plane above it, it automatically creates an Attic Wall on the floor above that wall to fill in the gap.

Attic Walls are typically found above Full Gable walls, forming a gable or closing the top portion of a side wall beneath a shed roof. They are also generated above all exterior walls when the Raise Off Plate value in the Build Roof dialog is 3” (175 mm) or greater.

Attic walls are often found on the Attic floor, but can be generated on other floors, as well, and if needed, you can specify a regular wall as an Attic Wall.

When you Rebuild Walls/Floors/Ceilings, all Attic Walls in the plan are deleted and rebuilt unless Auto Rebuild Attic Walls is not checked in the General Wall Defaults dialog.

There are several ways to handle attic walls. You can either combine them with the wall below, turn off their display completely, and even turn off their automatic generation.

To begin, we will explain how you can eliminate an existing Attic wall by combining it with the wall below it.

To combine the Attic Wall

1. Using the Select Objects tool, select the wall below the Attic Wall.
   
   

   If you get a warning that states, "A wall you are editing is an automatically generated wall. This wall will be retained and will not regenerate automatically if you modify it." then you know that you have selected the Attic wall, as opposed to the one below it.

   Return to floor plan view and go Down one floor, and select the appropriate wall that is generating the Attic wall above it.

   
   
   
2. Click on the Open Object edit button to display the Wall Specification dialog.
   
   
   
3. Next, select the Structure panel, and place a check mark in the Balloon Through Ceiling Above setting.
   
   
   
   

   Check this box to extend the selected wall upward to replace the Attic wall and balloon frame the entire wall when automatic framing is built.
   
   
   

4. Click OK to apply this change and close the Wall Specification dialog.
   
   
   

If you would rather just turn off the display of automatically generated walls, so that you do not see them in your 2D floor plan view, then follow these steps.

To turn off the Display of Attic Walls in floor plan view

1. With your plan still open to the 2D floor plan view, select Tools> Display Settings> Display Options .

   This will open the Display Options dialog for your currently active layer set, which in our example is the Default Set layer set.
   
   
   

2. Scroll down to the Walls, Attic layer and remove the check mark from the Disp column.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click OK to apply this change, so that Attic Walls will no longer be displayed when the Default Set layer set is in use, but will still be automatically generated by the program.
   
   
   

Finally, your last option is to turn off the automatic generation of Attic Walls completely, which means that you will need to manually draw in these walls to fill in the gaps between Full Gable walls and the roof planes above them.

To turn off the automatic generation of Attic Walls

1. Within your Chief Architect program, select Edit> Default Settings .
   
   
   
2. Expand the list for Walls.
   
   
   
3. Highlight General Wall and click the Edit button.
   
   
   
4. In the General Wall Defaults dialog, uncheck Auto Rebuild Attic Walls to suppress this feature and click OK.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Click Done in the Default Settings dialog to return to floor plan view, and from that point forward, no future Attic Walls will be automatically generated.