Good News from NAHB's Chief
Economist
The NAHB chief economist, David Crowe, reports that
January housing starts are up 1.5%. And more importantly, they're almost
at the 700,000 mark. We're excited to learn that things are starting to
return to normal. Click here to view the full report on youtube.
Survey Results
In the last newsletter, we asked our users about creating energy reports. We
found that:
80.4% say that an energy compliance report is required to obtain a
building permit.
When asked who creates the energy compliance report:
43% said that their designer creates the report.
18% said their HVAC contractor creates the report
16% said the builder creates it
14% said their engineer creates it
When asked how the report is calculated, 60.5% of users said that
REScheck is used to create the report. 32.6% said that they calculated
it by hand.
We hope that the last newsletter illustrated how easy it is to use
SoftPlan's integration with REScheck to create energy compliance
reports. And we hope that you're inspired to try it for yourself and
save some money in the process!
Training Information
Our live online training classes will be running throughout the spring. The
next class we're offering is the Roof class. This is a relatively new class that has
gotten a lot of great reviews. The Roof class runs from March 20-23.
If you've ever wanted to get more out of your material estimations, the
SoftList class is for you. The SoftList class is
offered April 17-20.
In Your
Toolbox: Display Height
The Display Height is the height of the wall that is visible in plan
view. The Display Height option in the Wall Definition menu allows you
to control which wall materials will be visible in plan view.
For example:
An 8' wall is drawn with two veneers, stone on the bottom quarter and
siding above. Currently, the Display Height for the wall is set to 44
inches and only siding can be seen in plan view. If you want show that
the bottom portion is stone, set the Display Height to a height where
the stone will be visible, for example, 16".
Siding in Plan View: Display Height = 44"
Stone in Plan View: Display Height = 16"
TechTips
Q: My elevations and cross sections are Shaded, I need to print them in
visible line so that I can paint them and add notes.
A: When a 3D elevation or cross section is first generated, it will
automatically appear in Shaded mode. The Shaded views need to be saved
as Drawings in order to add notes and paint to them. Select File >
Save> Save As and enter a name for the drawing. The drawing will be
saved in the Elevations > Drawings section of the Navigation pane.
Open the saved elevation drawing to add paint, notes, and dimensions.
Q: I know that I can disable Auto Dimension and Extension in the Setup
Options dialog, but is there a faster way to disable Auto Dimension and
Extension?
A: Yes, on the toolbar there is an Auto Dimension and Extension icon.
By default, it is enabled and the icon is highlighted. To quickly
disable Auto Dimension, select the toolbar icon again. The icon
highlighting will be removed and Auto Dimension will be disabled,
allowing you to draw items without them being automatically
dimensioned.
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