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LouiseSJPP

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About LouiseSJPP

  • Birthday May 28

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  • About Me
    Enjoying an early semi-retirement with a B+B in the beautiful Basque country, I love the Pyrenees and spend a lot of time in them on my trusty road bike. We're planning to build an eco house to retire a bit more thoroughly into, probably straw bale. Probably at least part self-built, my aim is to do as much of the design as possible, contract out the ground works, project-manage and help with the above ground work and with my husband do all the second fix.

    I have some tech and practical background, as a professional engineer rather than anything to do with building, but have flirted with eco build for any years.
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    Basque country, France

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  1. I was doing so badly with the different CAD packages, I began to wonder if it was me the problem. In desperation, I looked around for yet another package, last ditch attempt. I came across another open source package, QCAD. I downloaded it and opened it, and began drawing. No need for tutorials, everything was laid out ready to use. The manual is well put together, and easy to dip into for detail. Maybe it''s just that this package suits my workflow, but I found QCAD to be a refreshing chnage after all the recent frustrations. It's not free, the trial version runs for 15 minutes at a time, but the price is low, 33 euro here. Whether I'll use FreeCAD or physical models to add to the 2D I'm not sure yet, but for now, the log jam is released and I can begin a creative process Louise
  2. I did a practice piece a while ago, a pergola design. The sloping wall at the back was a huge problem to create. It was done in segments, but each time I tried to add the third and final segment, I'd get part of it going hollow, becoming a series of faces rather than a solid. There seemed to be no way to control it. The feeling I got throughout was lack of control, not enough tools, too much simply hoping it would do what I wanted.
  3. It was years ago since I last saw AutoCAD, but the command line approach looks very familiar:
  4. Given the replies so far, I've picked up on a 2D package, again the open source one, LibreCAD, an AutoCAD clone. I'll start the laying out in this, perhaps using FreeCAD 3D to rough out a few shapes to see how they look at an early stage, then going to physical models when the design is shaping up. Thank you all for your advice Louise
  5. This is an interesting perspective, which hadn't occurred to me. Must have a bit of a re-think here!
  6. I'm hoping to get all the way to detail design, although I'm not sure yet if I can manage it. As a former professional engineer, it should be within reach, it's just the problems of crossing disciplines. If I can't find a promising 3D package, I'd conceptualise in 2D drafting, I have no problem doing this, but I'd miss out on easy communication with others who cannot read 2D. It may sound silly, but I want pretty pictures both to ease through planning and to bring the locals on board. It's an area with deep, deep roots, and I don't want to rub against the grain. Presenting an obviously traditional design but with an easily-understood ecological pedigree is my aim. So, I'd like my cake and eat it please.... An easy-to-learn inexpensive software package that does everything!
  7. I'm at blank sheet stage. I need to conceptualise a design, I need to be able to present the concepts, I need to subsequently detail the design and then create planning drawings, detail drawings and BOM from the design. First question: Can one bit of software do all these jobs, or is it best to split the tasks? Second question: which software? This is all generic, it will apply to any project. In my case, a few specifics: I've looked at SketchUp and it appears to be less than robust. What worries me is that with so many assumed constraints, while it is quick to sketch, it easily makes incorrect assumptions and gives me faces where I want solids. When it goes bad, there seems to be little over-riding control. I'm currently looking at FreeCAD, which has a far more robust methodology of constraint. It still leaves some things in the lap of the gods, however, leaving me feeling that half way through designing a roof I'm going to find I cannot place an origin and set planes at the strange angles I need. It is also tricky finding out how to drive it: like many open-source projects, it runs ahead of its documentation leaving users scratching around YouTube tutorials looking for answers. I'm a little unwilling to go the whole hog with AUTOCAD, its horrendously expensive. I'm nervous of the 'house-designer' type offerings, believing that with their pre-defined structures, again, I'll come unstuck designing something like a roof. Trouble is, it's really hard seeing how software works in advance, and the learning curve to get into any of them to find out is steep. I'm OK once I've go into the ethos of a particular package, but I suffer terribly from frustration before then. Can anyone offer an advice? Louise
  8. The time has come, a little unexpectedly, opportunity being a fickle beast, to move into gear on our dreamed-of eco house, a house that take us in whatever form of retirement we will arrive at. I hesitate here because we're both very active and I can't see us sitting in front of day-time telly anytime soon. Nevertheless, we want a house that will look after us, look after the planet and cost next to nothing to run as we get older. The more we can plan it, design it and build it ourselves, the better. As far as we can see at the moment, that will be basic design if not detail design done by ourselves, ground works contracted out, above ground works project-managed by ourselves, with at least of lot of second fix done by ourselves. Probably straw bale, but this needs a full justification. It will be a very traditional Basque house from the outside, but with a lot of open space on the inside. Currently looking for land, researching build techniques, dipping into French building regs and trying to find our way around design software. Louise
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