First floor versus building pad

[cbalestreri]

This may be a silly question, but should my first floor be drawn as a building pad or as a floor? Also, is it possible to switch one to the other? I have already drawn the first floor as a floor, but if it has to be a building pad, then I need to redraw it.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I'd keep it as a floor. In my opinion the building pad should be used as an 'excavation' tool rather than a building element. There are more than a few good reasons for this but strictly from a practical standpoint your pad will need to extend to the exterior face of your foundation walls and, normally, your slab on grade would stop on the interior face.
You can't switch one to another but you could re-use the sketch lines.

[mthurnauer]

Dimitri,
As you stated is what I normally do, but one thing that has always perplexed me is that when the foundation walls and footings overlap the building pad, the pad shows up in section running right through the wall. So, in every section , I need to go through and cut profile the pad. Is there a way to avoid this step?

[cbalestreri]

Sounds good to me Dimitri, plus since I still can't draw an entire floor, roof, split region, ect without the program shutting off when I hit the green check button, it'll be less of a headache for me.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Dimitri,
As you stated is what I normally do, but one thing that has always perplexed me is that when the foundation walls and footings overlap the building pad, the pad shows up in section running right through the wall. So, in every section , I need to go through and cut profile the pad. Is there a way to avoid this step?
I would just turn the pad off in all views and use my floors to define the 'real' geometry. The underside of your pad will be at the level of your finished excavation. Your slab, c/w gravel base or whatever you use, is placed on top of that to create your floor.

[patricks]

I create pads as 1/4" thick elements and call it "vapor barrier", with it running to the outside face of finish on the exterior walls. Its elevation equals the bottom of the granular layer below the ground floor slab (typically -8" for 4" slab and 4" fill). Then I just turn off pads in my section views. That way I also get a solid line at the edge of the topography on my exterior elevations.

You don't want to do your ground floor slab as a pad, because that won't be able to host anything like slab edges, and won't clean up properly between your slab edges and foundation walls, as you have already seen.