I have a 3 story building with one floor ? below ground. I have gone through the archives & found instructions from Nick Caton on how to design the wall so part is below ground & part is above ground, but when I initially did this I set the whole shell underground. I need to change the portion above the ceiling to above ground instead of below ground & then I can do the rest of the wall like Nick instructed. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!!!!
Thank you,
Sheri Rice
Hi Sheri,
I'm not sure which instructions you're referring to (there's been too much!), but if you're trying to achieve something like the exterior-plenum-wall on a below-grade shell like below, check out this step-by-step instructional to change an exterior wall to an interior surface: http://onebuilding.org/wiki/doku.php/convert_an_exterior_surface_to_an_interior_surface_detailed
The below is achieved following the same procedure in concept, only instead of creating a new interior wall to replace the exterior wall, it's creating an exterior wall to replace the underground surface. Give it a try - after doing this once it'll take you a minute or less in the future!
(PS: ignore the adiabatic wall on the right - that was helping another fella out just now...)
Bonus challenge!:
After reading my how-to and conquering the above, I'll bet you can figure out the extra step to accomplish sloped basement exposures, just like the ever-impressive Bill Bishop:
(hint if you need it - Bill made it look easy in the archives...)
If you can pull that off, please don't hesitate to flex your sexy modeling muscles and show off the results ;).
Best of luck!
~Nick
NICK CATON, E.I.T.