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Learn · Designers and builders · Lesson 6 of 13

Give each building its own roof

You willRoof every building on a site its own way: a house, a granny flat, the neighbours, farm sheds or a campus.
Time4 min
Why it mattersA street or a farm has many buildings with different roofs, and the 3D view, elevations and the IFC export need each one right.

Try it in Plotlay → Opens an example project with this lesson beside it. Nothing to install.

Steps

  1. Draw each building’s rooms with the Room tool. Rooms within about half a metre of one another are one building; a separate group of rooms is another building, with a roof of its own.
  2. Select a room, open More settings if it is closed, and find the building’s section in the inspector. Choose Select the building to see which rooms it has.
  3. Set its Roof (gable, hip, Dutch gable, skillion or flat), Pitch, Eaves overhang, Ridge, Roof sheet and Roof colour. Leave one on As the project to follow the project’s roof.
  4. Type BLD in the command line (or choose All buildings…) for every building in one list: pick one on the left to change its roof, and give it a Name.
  5. Open 3D to check: each building has its own roof, gutters and fascia. In Elevations, choose the building under Building to draw its four sides.

Tips

  • A building on several levels gets its roof on its top level when every level has a height (Layers, Levels).
  • Solar panels, skylights and pool heating sit on the roof under them, whichever building that is.
  • A drawing set has an elevations sheet for each building: A201, A201a, A201b.

Common mistakes

  • Two buildings came out as one: they are less than half a metre apart. Move one away, or treat them as one building on purpose.
  • One house came out as two: a gap between rooms (an undrawn hallway) splits it. Draw the hallway as a room so the house joins up.
Check yourself

The granny flat should have a skillion roof and the house a hip. What do you do?

Words in this lesson

Layer
A group of things in a project, listed in the Layers tab. A hidden layer is left out of the plan, 3D and documents until you show it again.
Drawing set
One numbered PDF of sheets (cover, plans, elevations, sections, schedules) with the same title block on each.
Elevation and section
An elevation is a side of the house, or a wall from inside, drawn straight on. A section is a cut through the building along a line you place.

Related lessons

Make elevations and sectionsGet scaled outside elevations, sections and inside wall views from the plan, and download them as a PDF.4 minChoose finishes and add fit-out to a roomSet a room’s floor tile and paint, and place a fitting such as a towel rail against a wall to the millimetre.5 minIssue a drawing setMake one numbered PDF of plans, elevations, 3D views and schedules with your title block.4 min

Steps checked in the app on 17 October 2026.