I have seen tutorials where you have to make the 2X4’s by hand. I found this really tedious. It there any extensions of plug ins that people suggest that make this easier?
Thanks,
Jordyn
the “Housebuilder” extention. This will generate all the wall framing, floor framing and roof framing. It will cut for windows and doors. However, it can be generic in some areas which will require you to modify rafter ends, cut for stairs, etc. But, in general, it will speed up the framing process.
If I were you, I would try out RubyWindow 3D (doors, windows and frames)
This extension allows you to easily place, well… the doors windows and frames 
Trying to do this with only skecthUp will cost you a lot of time. I think it is a lot easier and much faster with this extension. You can find it at the extension warehouse ore (you could first take a look) at www.rubysoft.eu
I hope this will help you.
One 2x4 Component is sufficient to model all.
Simply scale an instance to desired length and make unique if you need to differentiate lengths for material estimating purposes.
Most framing schemes are ”continuous”.
That is, the load bearing members of floors, walls and roof stack vertically.
I find SketchUp’s precise Move-Copy-Array function makes building exactly what you want incredibly fast and painless.
-Geo
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I’m finding PlusSpec to be incredibly powerful for building homes in SketchUp. Check out https://plusspec.com/. Walls, windows, doors, roofing, floors, ceilings, all attached with real product data. Full material take-offs, cost reporting (soon), it also prep’s all your scenes for LayOut.
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If you are still looking for an estimating solution for SketchUp, check out Estimator for SketchUp Extension | SketchUp Extension Warehouse To generate 2x4’s etc., I use Profile Builder 2, then use Estimator to assign costs (like total 2x4LF divided by 16’ for how many 2x4x16 plates needed - take-off and estimate all components, etc. easily. For studs, I created various sized stud Components and then copy as needed (assign cost per stud, waste, tax, etc) - good luck!
so many people are having trouble downloading and using Housebuilder extension. is there an alternative that we can simply click and download? Thanks!
They shouldn’t be. Both the imperial and metric versions are freely available from Sketchucation.
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Thanks, Dave, for support. I got it installed per your link.
Steve.
Hi Geo
Thanks for reminding us of the power of ‘basic’ Sketchup.
But regarding house design, are there any downloads you would recommend to speed work?
John
Several that I would recommend for design and construction documentation of residential structures include:
There is a cost associated with each, but IMO, these are well worth the reasonable prices.
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This week or the next I hope to release the first iteration of the Medeek Wall Plugin. It will probably be couple months before it materializes into something with some utility but its a work in progress.
Check out:
Medeek Construction Library (SketchUp plugins)
Kickstarter campaign
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/128644708/medeek-construction-plugin-library
All or nothing. This project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Tue, August 29 2017
The Medeek Construction Library combines following SketchUp plugins:
- Original Truss Plugin
- Foundation Plugin
- Wall Plugin. (New - to be added)
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Well, I am personally experiencing a few problems and it’s only been a few days since I downloaded house builder. I can’t build doors to my exact dimension I’d like. For example if I want a door height to be 81 and a header to be 82.5, it won’t work. Even when I do header to 83 it is half an inch off. It simply won’t build doors in some walls, I’ve tried deleting the wall and retrying but that doesn’t always work either, (sometimes though). Anyways, all in all, having a number of issues and I’ve tried some obvious work arounds to see if things would work. Not the best app so far.
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Housebuilder is an ancient extension as extensions go. And for free it does a pretty decent job. You can certainly edit the doors after they are made. Or look at the commercial options available.
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Would you mind giving me some affordable options? Or good free work arounds?
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Currently there is only the Truss and Foundation Plugins available on my site, I apologize that I haven’t had much movement or progress on the wall plugin, I’ve been too busy with the Truss Plugin and haven’t been able to squeeze in enough programming time to bust it out.
To be perfectly honest I would like to make my plugins available completely free of charge but I also need to somehow justify all of the time and effort I spend at developing them.
For wall framing I still use the Housebuilder plugin myself, but I agree that it has certain limitations and has a lot to be desired in the way of extra features and functionality.
I’ve looked into PlusSpec and I think it is a solid platform but my own personal use of it would not justify the licensing costs, but for serious designer or architect this is probably the most attractive option in my opinion.
I also kind of took my focus off the wall plugin once I heard that John Brock was getting ready to release his new wall plugin that would replace the housebuilder plugin. I am curious as to the status of that plugin/project.
I was using the Housebuilder a couple of days ago to create this sample model of a barn:
If you look at the placement of the doors you will notice that they are off center by 1.5 inches. This seems to be an issue with the Housebuilder plugin, and it is certainly annoying.
I found some time ago that I could model walls faster from scratch than I could cleaning up after housebuilder.
Shep
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