Stacked Wall - Controlling Variable

[mmiles]

Hi all,

I am not too well versed with stacked walls, but I have a basic understanding of how they work. What I would like to do is create a stacked wall with three wall types:

wood siding on wood stud (the bottom of which is at my floor level)
Concrete Foundation with Stone Veneer (the top of which is at floor level)
Concrete Foundation with CMU to support Stone veneer (bottom is known, too).Then, I would like to be able to controll the depth to which the stone veneer extends below grade, and subsequently the top of the cmu which supports that stone.

In my situation, on side of the building has heights that are constant. On two sides the topography slopes and I would like to be able to pull that connection between the stone veneer and cmu to accomodate an adjusting finish grade. I have already created various wall segments to account for the terrain heights, but I am hoping to avoid creating duplicates of the stacked walls - just because...

Is this scenario possible? If yes, then how do I accomplish this? I have tried unlocking the tops and bottoms of my basic walls, but I do not see how I can use that feature to drag the layers of the walls as I have described.

Thanks very much!

[mthurnauer]

In a stacked wall, only one of the wall types in the stack can vary and what you really need is to set the height of all three. So, You will need to make your stacked wall and then make multiple duplications of it and adjust the height of each section. You may name the first one Stack at grade, and then duplicate and name subsequent stacks: Stack -2 feet, Stack -4 feet, etc.

[dlpdi5b]

I am guessing that your footing and stemwall will only step in a couple of locations, but your veneer may step many places? If so, why not make a separate wall that is just the veneer layer, and use the EDIT PROFILE button? Also the cmu is modeled as a separate wall, again using EDIT PROFILE.

I made the stemwall step by splitting the wall in two locations using the split tool, and then in elevation view dragging the wall grips up or down to the levels I made for each excavation step.

Next I created a wall to represent the cmu, and did a similar split and EDIT PROFILE. Then create a wall for the stone veneer, and again use splits and/or EDIT PROFILE to get whatever shape you need.

I liked this method because I could have a lot of flexibility to adjust these without messing up your stemwall or the building above, and the wall takeoffs are correct when you schedule the veneer and cmu for these walls.

I am curious to hear about other methods that people use for this situation of stepping multilayer walls, or any suggestions for a better way to do this.

[The Sweg]

Depending on the amount of accuracy you need, for sections of walls or whatever, I have used the 'split face' command and assigned a different material, which will also schedule. Perhaps in your situation, you could make a wall that is the correct thickness of all the materials, then in your elevation view, you use the split face tool and draw your boundary to follow the grade. You then could assign your stone veneer material to everything above grade and CMU or whatever to the face below grade. Sometimes, using multiple walls causes wall join and clean-up issues, but this way, you're only working with one wall.

HTH

[dlpdi5b]

I was trying your suggested method of using the split face, but I couldn't figure out how you would do that and still report the correct areas of cmu versus veneer stone to a schedule? Can you help me understand how that would work?

[Scott Womack]

I was trying your suggested method of using the split face, but I couldn't figure out how you would do that and still report the correct areas of cmu versus veneer stone to a schedule? Can you help me understand how that would work?

You need to use a Material Take-off schedule, from Walls to get the area of the split face/different material to schedule.

[The Sweg]

What I did when I was first messing with it, was to create a material schedule and have it open on the screen and watch it change as I did my split face edits. That way you can see what materials are changing and what aren't. You could use a wall schedule to get your CMU figures and a material schedule to get your stone or brick veneer amounts. If I am thinking correctly, changing the material by face only affects that face, and not the opposite side of the wall, so adding stone to a face would not necessarily change the CMU amounts.

[dlpdi5b]

Thanks to The Sweg and Scott Womack. The trick I was missing is that I had only been looking at the schedules I could produce from either the view tab or the construction tab, and what I needed to do was look at the View menu>New>Material Takeoff.

[3dway]

I'm interested in more about this.

I would like to be able to specify the height of the split with a tool like the edit profile tool.

We have a foundation wall that is a stacked wall with parging above and a drainage layer below grade. This needs to step with grade. I haven't got that far in any projects yet.

I suppose I will look into "split face".

I find I have to make a lot of wall types to actually model the way materials actually come together in construction.