Construction Cartoons: Our Featured Artist Chaise Payan

Our site Blueprint Bluepers features the art of Chaise Payan. He creates original construction cartoons especially for our company based on errors actually found in construction drawings that we have reviewed. We have had a great time helping him develop humorous drawings for us.

However, he does more than just what you have seen on our sites. Here is a peak into his sketchbook.

Necromancy



Um, excuse me, do you-


Mad Hatter

Mademoiselle

Chaise Payan is currently finishing up his senior year at Weber State University, he is expected to graduate with a BFA with a 2D emphasis. Check him out at Linkedin.

To read more about how we look for artists and how we found Chaise, click here.

See more of our original cartoons created by Chaise.

Check out some of the sketches created while thinking about our cartoons.

Nigro Firm News: More Reasons to Love Seattle

There are many reasons to love Seattle - Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, views of the Puget Sound, a stellar night skyline and now, the City of Seattle has partnered with the Nigro Firm. After an extensive RFQ consultant selection process, the Nigro Firm was selected as the City of Seattle's Fleet and Facilities Department's sole source for construction coordination reviews.

The Nigro Firm has begun helping the City of Seattle save money on it's new and/or renovated fire stations. So far, we have reviewed the drawings for the new Fire Station #38 and #39. The old stations are pictured below:




While researching the City of Seattle and its' fire stations we discovered the the city has many historic and architecturally interesting fire stations, such as:

Fire Station #6
Fire Station #13
To see all of Seattle's Fire Stations click here.

In November of 2003, 69% of voters in Seattle approved the Fire Facilities and Emergency Response Levy. This nine-year program that began in 2004, will use levy proceeds and other funding to upgrade, renovate, or replace 32 neighborhood fire stations and to construct a new training facility, a new Fire Alarm Center, and more. We are very excited to be a part of the city's Fire Facilities and Emergency response improvements.

To read more about how the Nigro Firm can help your city save money and time with a construction document coordination review, see the Nigro Firm. Or just give us a call, we would love to talk to you.

Construction Humor: Who is reviewing your construction drawings?

Hmmm...bad idea.



Give us a call instead...we have many more years experience than your cat...and we have oppose-able thumbs.

Construction News: Rising material costs hit home

Rising material costs over the last few years have made a huge impact on the cost of constructing schools in Utah. Though this is not just a local problem, rising material costs effect all construction projects.

For example, in 2003 the Jordan School district in Utah built a school for the total build cost of 7 million, today the same building plan will cost them 15 million.

The dramatic difference has been pinpointed to two factors, the rise in material costs and the increase of the price of land in the district. Increased copper prices have driven up the cost of the electrical system by 200%, drywall cost rose 90% and the price of land has skyrocketed from around $50,000 per acre to nearly $300,000.

Could the Nigro Firm have helped this school district reduce costs?
At this point, likely not, since they are working from a set of drawings that have already been built from, we would like to assume that the errors on the drawings have been discovered and corrected. However, we can help reduce total build costs by reviewing original sets of drawings. Our construction coordination reviews catch errors on drawings and if they are corrected before materials are ordered and construction has started, cost over runs can be greatly reduced.

Construction Humor: Take a break with these funny videos

And you thought your Monday mornings were bad...



Contractors....don't follow this guys example, please.



Every wonder what your crew is doing when you are not around?



You might want to think twice before yelling at your heavy machinery operator...



NOW GET BACK TO WORK, LOL.

Our Newest Construction Cartoon: How do you wind this thing?

Bright move… putting a sundial
where the sun don’t shine

The Real Deal
After giving precise calibration instructions for the sundial, the drawings showed it in a location where it would be in the shade for the entire day.

We do not have an official title for this one yet, but here are some of our ideas:

Sundial in the Shade (sorta a spoof on Raisin in the Sun)
How do you wind this thing?
Made in the Shade

Hmm....any ideas, let us know.

For more great construction cartoons, see Blueprint Bluepers.

Want to avoid these type of errors? GIVE US A CALL!

The days of beer and dandelions

At the Nigro Firm we believe the days of wine and roses are over and we are now in the days of beer and dandelions. We believe that it is time to reduce costs where ever and whenever we can, without sacrificing quality.

We started the Beagle Review Newsletter to introduce our firm to you and to bring a little humor into the construction industry. We have enjoyed designing and producing each and every issue. We sincerely hope you enjoyed receiving them. However, we believe we can share information by using our web sites in the future with a lot less environmental impact.

We hope you will stop by and visit us frequently and enjoy our articles, cartoons, and anything else we can think of to share.

Please feel free to keep in touch. We will miss you if you don’t.