I live in a wooden bungalow on brick pillars in the Wyre forest.
I want to do some major repairs so I had a meeting with the local planning department today to discuss what I can and can’t do as there are some odd rules covering these sort of buildings around here.
They want some drawings of the existing building and my proposals.

What free software is there that will draw the basic layout of a building with a floor plan and elevations as that’s all I really need at the moment ?

Once I want to make a start on actually building the place, it would be handy to have something that could do detailed drawings for a wooden bungalow as well. Is there anything like that available for free or at a sensible price ?

Sketchup?

Sketchup looks good, there’s a couple of hours of tutorial videos to work through first though.
Is there anything that’s aimed more specifically at what I want ?
Just a simple plan and elevations with windows and doors and interior walls.

Midland, I used sketch-up when I needed to design a room for a project at college, it was really easy. If I can use it, anyone can

you can get a 30 day free trial of autocad – the main 2 and 3D cad software that we use.

tho it is fairly simple to use the learning curve is something like this? /

Another vote for sketchup.

+1 Sketchup, bunch of my Architect student friends still used it in their 5th year.

Why not just draw it out by hand?
After your previous email about your Bewdley Shack I did look up a relatively local specialist in timber buildings but as you’re going to buy some “architect software” I’m sure you’ll be fine.

I probably will end up drawing it by hand, even if I have to use graph paper.
Sketchup seems to be far more complex than I need. It looks like it would take quite a while to get familiar with it enough to do what I want.
All I want is the ability to create a simple floor plan and four elevations, something like this.

I’ve tried a couple of free downloads and an on line house designer and they all just turn floor plans in to 3D pictures.
Is there anything out there that will easily create drawings like the one above ?

MS paint?

Sketchup is super easy if you can be bothered to run through the tutorials, it will be painful if you just fire it up and expect to be able to use it

it will be painful if you just fire it up and expect to be able to use it

I think that’s the problem.
These floor plan designer things are pretty intuitive and I worked out how to drag and drop windows and doors in to place in a couple of minutes.
I’ve been persevering with Sketchup and got to this stage so far.

I’ll stick with it and try to get some more details showing.

Two quick questions.
How do I add interior walls and how do I do a section through at about 1.5m above ground level to show a floor plan complete with interior walls and doors and windows ?

How do I add interior walls and how do I do a section through at about 1.5m above ground level to show a floor plan complete with interior walls and doors and windows ?

To do the interior you have a couple of options. Either draw the whole floorplan in 2D with the line and rectangle tool then use the push/pull to pull the walls up to 3D or draw the outline like you have but minus the roof the draw the rooms individually and again use the push/pull tool but this time to remove them. Add the roof after that.

For a section its just tools/section

Just given this some more thought as the last reply was a bit rushed. If I were drawing a house then this is how I would do it:

1. Draw outline of house, pull it up 100mm for the floor
2. On the top surface of the floor draw the rooms without doors and pull up the walls
3. Draw the doors and push them through the walls
4. Repeat 1-3 for the first floor
5. Draw the windows and push them through into the rooms
6. Draw the roof, chimney, etc

as nickjb says. That the easiest way to get going that I can think of as well

Have you looked at Archicad. My gf is an interior architect and uses Archicad, pretty much worships it…

I think there is a free download around on the web

I was thinking about this last night and sketch up may not cover your situation well – sorry. If you want to work on your house in 3d it’s great and difficult to beat without allot of training. However, for drawing floor plans and elevations with the appropriate symbols then afaik it won’t do it without some faffing around. It can do it but you will end up having to draw the appropriate symbols on the floor so you see them.

I don’t know of any free software that does both I’m afraid 🙁

simple, find an architect / architectural student to do it, most architects will work for peanuts at the moment

either that or get out some pencils, a scale rule, a measuring tape, some graph paper and a rubber.

planning will want scale drawings and are very unlikely to accept a kack sketch-up model.