Basement egress windows, wells and ladders
Middlesex Waterproofing cuts egress windows into basement walls, with a drained well and a ladder outside.
If you are finishing a basement, and especially if someone will sleep down there, the room needs a way out besides the stairs. An egress window is that way out, and it lets in a lot more light than the small window it usually replaces.
What makes a basement window an egress window
An egress window is an emergency exit. It has to open wide enough, from inside and without tools, for an adult to climb out and for a firefighter in gear to climb in. The sill has to be low enough to reach, and the well outside has to leave room to get up and out.
The building code sets those sizes, and your town's construction office checks them. We size the opening, the window and the well to meet the code that applies to your house, and the inspector confirms it before the job is closed out.
An egress window job
- Opening
- Cut into the foundation wall, sized to code
- Window
- Casement or similar, opens fully from inside
- Well
- Set outside the opening, with drainage at the bottom
- Ladder
- Fixed in the well when its depth calls for one
- Permit
- Filed with the town before the wall is cut
Cutting the opening in a block or poured wall
Most jobs start by enlarging an existing basement window opening downward and outward. Outside, a hole the size of the well is dug in front of the window, the only digging the job needs. Inside, the wall is cut with a saw so the edges are clean, and a header carries the wall above the new opening where the wall needs it.
Block walls need the cut cores filled solid along the sides of the opening. Poured walls cut cleanly but take heavier equipment. Either way, the new window is set, sealed to the wall and trimmed inside.
Block or poured
- Block wall
- Cores along the cut filled solid
- Poured wall
- Clean saw cut, heavier equipment
- Above the opening
- A header where the wall needs one
- Inside
- Window set, sealed and trimmed
Wells that drain instead of fill
A window well is a hole next to your foundation, and a hole collects water. A well that does not drain fills in a storm and pushes water through the brand new window. This is where egress work meets waterproofing.
We set a stone base in the bottom of the well and connect it to drainage, tying it to interior drain tile where the house has it. A cover keeps out leaves and most rain while still opening easily from below.
Permits and the construction office
Egress windows are not ordinary maintenance in New Jersey. Under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7, cutting away part of a wall and changing a required means of egress are both excluded from ordinary maintenance, so the work needs a permit.
Egress window work goes through the town's construction office. We pull the permits the job needs and schedule the inspections. If you are finishing the rest of the basement, that work may need its own permits, and it helps to plan the window first.
Finishing a basement in nearby towns
In Edison, a township of more than 39,000 homes, over 21,000 were built before 1980. In Woodbridge, the soil mapped around Woodbridge Proper includes Haledon soils rated very limited for basements, so the well drain matters as much as the window. In Spotswood, permits go through the borough's Division of Inspections on Summerhill Road.