Newbie problem with push/pull tool

I’ve follows the tutorials and I’m working on my first project.

I created a room, and then I want to add my fireplace/chimney stack. So I used the tape measure to create 3 guide lines, then I created a rectangle on the floor with the rectangle tool.

When I push/pull it to the ceiling however, it seems to be hollow, which I wasn’t expecting. The screenshot on the right is the result of push/pulling it to the ceiling. What am I doing wrong?

Would you share the skp file?

Option key with p/p makes a new face and leaves the old face in place.

Edit: oops I should have checked your system, that’s control on PC

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Thanks, holding CTRL has done the trick. It looks like one of my walls has the same problem but I can redo it. Many thanks.

To force the original face to remain when PushPulling you just press the Ctrl key on PC or Option key on a MAC.

This issue is exacerbated by you having incorrectly oriented faces.
The visible faces should be ‘fronts’ [whitish], you should not see any ‘backs’ [blue-gray]
When you PushPull the rectangle for the fireplace the ‘floor’ face on which it is drawn is actually upside down [the floor has no real thickness], so SketchUp assumes that the original face is not needed…

To fix incorrectly oriented faces, View > Monochrome mode and select those faces and right-click > context-menu > Reverse…

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A suggestion: use Groups or Components to segregate geometry primitives (edges and faces) into non-interacting “spaces” or contexts. If everything is “loose geometry” at the top-most level of the model hierarchy then edges and faces will merge with each other as you create them. You probably don’t want such “stickiness” in certain situations. For example the fireplace is probably best modeled in its own group, so that you could move it around slightly without having any effect on the adjacent wall.

Creating such groups or components as you go is a very handy practice. For example, before you create the fireplace or other elements, triple-click (with the Select tool, default hot-key is space-bar) on some portion of any wall to select all of the attached geometry edges and faces. Then use Make Group or Make Component. After that, continue to create new geometry for the fireplace, then select all the fireplace bits and pieces and Make Group of that, etc. As you create fireplace bits and pieces you’ll still be able to use SketchUp’s inferencing to snap to guides, edges, etc. but the new geometry won’t merge with existing e=geometry that is enclosed or protected within a group or a component.

When you need to make edits to an existing group or component, just double-click (with the Select tool active) on some portion of it to “open its context” for editing. When done editing a group or component, use the Select tool and just click anywhere outside the faint bounding box of the group or component to close it.

You can nest groups and components, which is also handy. By the way a component is a fancy form of a group, which is useful for managing copies of repeating geometry. When you make a copy of a component, edits to any instance of the component will automatically and instantly replicate to all other instances - pretty cool! Groups lack this feature - when you edit a copy of a group, only that copy is affected.

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Thanks mate I will try to understand what you said and see what happens. Are there some more tutorials that talk about orienting faces and stuff? I am not making much progress it took me an hour to do what is in the screenshot because things keep deleting other things. Thanks for helping me

Here is a specific video from SketchUp on groups vs. components. Here is a video on face orientation. The SketchUp channel has lots of very informative videos.

Not sure if it can help.

I bought this book SketchUp 2016 Hands-On: Basic and Advanced Exercises (PDF) - 3DVinci
It is a pack with two books, the basic one and the advance one.
I did almost all the basic one, I think it was a good help, I don’t regret to buy it.

There is a curve for all learning, it takes time to blast off (not sure about the verb, Spanish is my first language).

And … this forum is still helping me a lot, it takes time to make a post, try to post pictures about your doubts, make some .gif files using for example LICEcap and share your .skp file, that all will make easier others to help you.

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