Customer Reviews

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I upgraded from the previous version, Home Designer Pro 6, to the new version no. 7, because I found this program to be an excellent choice for software to design my new house.

In my previous review about Home Designer Pro 6, I stated:

I found Home Designer Pro 6 to be an excellent choice for software to design my new house. While this software does not have all the features of Chief Architect's more sophisticated software, Chief Architect 10, or AutoCad's architectural version, neither does it have the substantially higher cost. I found this software easy to use to design the floor plan. I was able to use either Home Designer Pro 6 tools or CAD tools. Since I had already drawn a house plan using AutoCad's AutoSketch software, it was easy for me to import the DXF file format into Home Designer Pro 6 and get started. My wife and I particularly found the 3D view feature to be an excellent one. Often, when we looked at all the angles of a room in our floor plan in 3D view, for example, our kitchen, we discovered that we needed or wanted to redesign the layout or size of that room. For example, we were able to view what a person would see once they entered the front door of our "new" house in a panorama of views. What we saw the first time caused us to move some walls, creating a more pleasant, "first impression" view. I would highly recommend this software to anyone planning to build a custom house. With our completed design using this software, my wife and I have something substantive that we can give to a draftsman to draw up a final set of plans. This should save us consider time and expense for drafting and get construction on our house started sooner.

My recommendations still hold. In fact, I've become a bigger fan of this program the more I use it. I can't tell you how many times I've drawn my house plan only to have my wife see the 3D view and tell me I needed to change something. It was great that she could see how the house would look once built. Our builder of custom homes for 20+ years was so impressed with my drawings that he bought a copy to use for his remodeling jobs. But, he bought a less robust version that he now regrets. He's upgrading to the Pro 7 so he can do more things, particularly the precision dimensions. I also was able to get $2,000 knock off the cost of my house plans, because the plans I'd drawn were nearly complete, except for building code requirements. And I reduced my time to get plans drawn by 60%. Again I would highly recommend this software to anyone planning to build a custom house or remodeling an existing house.

Upgraded from the non-Pro version. Pro expands on a huge amount of functionality and makes many of the tasks that you could do with the earlier version much simpler. Roof's (my nemesis in the $100 version) are manageable. Dormers are easy. Centering a door on a window on the opposite wall is automated. Defining half-height wainscotting is now do-able. Haven't tried the CAD functions and I'm hoping I won't have to, because it looks like Pro doesn't have much beyond simple shapes, plus being able to read CAD designs from the $1300 version.

The video tutorials are a bit slow, but very useful. 2 hrs of them. There are also sites to go for help and to download custom item CAD files. Will post more when I have completed this house design.

My real need for this project is to show my architect that it is actually possible to turn-around design changes in hours rather than weeks. My permit office requires architect sign-off on pretty much everything. Worth many times more than $500 to my project.

Home Designer Pro 7.0 has a fairly steep learning curve, but is very easy to use afterwards. The reason for the learning curve is the fact that building design is not simple - to get meaningful results, you need to know a lot of specifics. If you get frustrated with any aspect of this program, watch the tutorial for that task! There are many short tutorials rather than a few long ones, so you can target your problem area very quickly. The manual contains the same information as the tutorials. Everything is high quality, except some pops and static in the tutorial soundtrack. And not only can you get detailed building plans (layouts) from this software, you have complete control of the plans' content. I started with an architect who came highly recommended, but realized that I wanted the type of control that this software provides - I saved money, too. Check your local building codes - they may be different from the defaults.

I just started using the 6.0 version and I'm pleased. No, it will not replace ACAD but it is a good accessory. It's good enough for zoning and concept drawings. I hate spending days on a drawing only to have it rejected. This way I can quickly get everyone in agreement on the basic plan. The walk through can save you money & time by not having to make a bunch of revisions. It's not bad for the money and I recommend it.

Home Designer Pro 7.0 is addictive. Watching your home "come to life" in 3-D color is absolutely amazing. Even though the software tackles extraordinarily complicated functions, most of them are shielded by intuitive icons. For example, there's the parent/child concept. "Wall" is the "Parent" and "Child" is "Exterior" vs. "Interior" vs. "Foundation" wall. But, because the software is so powerful, plan on investing some time figuring out how the program "thinks." It's the 80/20 rule. The first time you do something complex, it takes a while. The second time, it's generally a snap. For a couple of items, I finally gave up and contacted technical support. I got immediate answers - what a pleasant surprise! The only area where I got really frustrated involved complex roof lines. So, from a "baby boomer" non-technical female who "hates" computers, this software gets an "A."

I had another version of home designer and had already created my plan with it. I purchased Pro because I wanted to create plans to submit to my county for adding onto my home. I was able to use the plan I created in my lower version and use the Pro features to complete it for submission to my county building department.

Generally the program worked great. My only difficulties were with designing the roof. The auto roof feature only draws hip roofs and to make my design with only gable roofs was convoluted. I tried using their methods to get the auto roof to draw gables by labeling the walls and using the gable roof tool but I never could get the right gables and ended up placing each roof plane manually. It was more time consuming than I thought it should have been. I had a very basic addition plan and I don't think it should have been so diffiult. The auto roof feature should be able to draw other roof types. A menu choice for the auto roof feature should include both hip and gable choices and then draw them automatically with only a couple of clicks.

My next obstacle is apparently a common one and that is printing the plan in a larger format to use for submission to builders and building departments. I tried and tried to print to a pdf file as suggested but I never could get it to work right. If you have a pdf file you can use that doesn't involve advertising it would be fantastic. I finally got frustrated and talked with my county officials and they accepted my plans on regular 8.5 x 11 paper that I printed at home so I never did figure out the "print from pdf". The plans passed county review without a problem.

The purchase price of 500.00 was steep but not when compared to the home designer who was going to charge 1000.00 for the same plan I created and submitted. Now I can use it for other projects we may take on.

The program is capable of doing quite a bit, but if you are a professional builder you may need to do more than this program can. However it is a good place to start in order to learn how the product works. Chief Architect will give you a $500 credit if you have purchased this product and decide to upgrade to Chief Architect 10.

This program does everthing you could want. You will have to do a LOT of reading to do what you want (IT CAN BE DONE)You can develop blueprints with this program, if you know exactly the products that you will be using in your construction. You have to know alot to show alot.

As a small remodeling firm we needed a program to fit all of our design, layout, and 3D needs. This program does it all and is very easy to use if you have any experience with design/ cad programs. The price point is great considering all of the design tools in the package.

I used the BHG Designer Suite before buying this PRO version to work with my architect who is using the full Chief Architect product. The Suite product doesn't allow you to work with the CA files, which is a real bummer, so I upgraded to PRO. I think I liked the Suite product better than this one for the reviewing and minor changes I wanted to do with my architect, but PRO works about the same.