The house you get before you have chosen anything.
Two builders quoting the same drawings are quoting two different houses, and almost nobody publishes which one. This is our standard specification, carried in every contract we write, at every size and every price. Read it beside somebody else's and the forty percent gap on sheet 03 explains itself.
| System | What is standard in a Castellano house | What is often inside a lower number |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | Filled block on the ground floor, engineered frame above, strapping and a wind rated envelope inspected twice, once by the engineer and once by us | Code minimum, inspected once, by the county |
| Roof | 24 gauge standing seam metal, or architectural shingle where a review board requires it, on a fully adhered underlayment | Entry level architectural shingle on felt |
| Windows and doors | Impact rated aluminum clad wood, every opening, including the ones nobody sees from the street | Vinyl impact units, with clad wood only across the front elevation |
| Insulation and attic | Open cell foam at the roof deck, so the attic is inside the house and so is every duct | Batt insulation on the ceiling, ducts in a 130 degree attic |
| Air conditioning | Two or three variable speed systems, load calculated room by room, all ductwork in conditioned space, dehumidification on its own control | One oversized system sized off the square footage |
| Plumbing | Manifold home runs, a recirculating loop so the far bathroom is not ninety seconds of cold water, and every valve accessible without cutting drywall | Trunk and branch, no loop, and one access panel in a closet |
| Electrical | 400 amp service, whole house surge protection, conduit sleeves for future solar and a car charger, and every wall photographed before it is closed | 200 amp, no sleeves, and a wall you will be drilling blind in year three |
| Interior finish | Solid core doors throughout, five piece trim, and level 5 drywall on every wall a window rakes across | Hollow core past the front hall, and level 4 everywhere |
| Floors | Site finished white oak or full body porcelain. No laminate anywhere in the house, at any price | Engineered plank in the bedrooms, tile that shows its glaze at every chip |
| Cabinetry | Built to the drawing by a shop in Apopka, plywood boxes, soft close runners, finished on all six sides | Ordered from a catalogue and adjusted with filler strips |
| Paint | Two coats over primer, sprayed and back rolled, and a touch up crew that comes back at eleven months | One coat, and a phone number that stops answering |
Six things are an allowance, and we print the figure.
Appliances, plumbing fixtures, lighting, tile, cabinetry hardware and landscape are carried as dollar allowances, because you have not chosen them yet and anybody who tells you otherwise is guessing on your behalf.
An allowance set too low is the oldest trick in this trade. It makes a contract look cheaper by exactly the amount you will overspend in month nine, and it is the single most common reason a build finishes over. So the actual figures carried in a Castellano contract are published, in dollars, on sheet 03. Compare them line by line with the ones in the contract on your kitchen table.
The specification is mostly people.
Our framing crew has worked for this company for twenty two years. The lead carpenter has framed sixty of the two hundred and fourteen houses, and he sets a corner the same way every time, which is why our drywall is flat.
Four to six houses a year is a small enough number that the same trades can do all of them. They are not squeezing us in between production jobs, they are not learning our details on your house, and they know that if the work is wrong they are coming back, because they always have.
Every superintendent here runs three houses at once. Not eleven. If you want to know what a builder's specification really is, ask that question and watch what happens.
- No vinyl windowsNot on any house, at any price, in any room. They are fine products and they are wrong on a house built to stand for eighty years beside the ones we already built.
- No ducts in a hot atticIn this climate it is the single worst decision available, and it is standard nearly everywhere. Conditioned attics cost more up front and about a third less to run.
- No allowance we know is shortIf the number will not buy what you have described to us, we raise it in the contract and the contract looks more expensive. That is the trade.
- No change order for our own mistakeIf we missed it, coordinated it wrong or built it twice, it is ours. You will see this in writing before you sign anything.
- No twelfth houseWe start four to six a year. When the year is full the answer is a date, not a discount, and it is usually about nine months out.
Three questions about what is included.
Can I take things out of the standard to save money?
Some of it, yes, and we will tell you which parts are worth touching. Shingle instead of standing seam on a low visibility roof saves real money. Level 4 drywall in the closets saves almost nothing and we will talk you out of it. The two we will not remove are the impact rated openings and the conditioned attic, because both are structural to how the house performs in this climate, and taking them out makes it a different house with our plate on the door.
What is the warranty, and who answers the phone in year two?
One year on everything in the house, two years on mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and ten years structural through a third party warranty company. That is the paperwork. The practical answer is that you call the office and Miguel or the superintendent who built your house comes out. We are four to six houses a year, we are twenty minutes away, and the plate beside your door has our name cut into it.
Do you build to code, or above it?
Code is the least legal house you are allowed to hand somebody. Everything on this page sits above it, and none of it is exotic: it is mostly deciding to spend money where it cannot be seen. The wind rated envelope, the conditioned attic, the manifold plumbing and the photographs of every wall before drywall are the four that matter most and the four that no visitor will ever notice.