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Egress windows?

BuzzBuzzBuzz

BuzzBuzzBuzz

Member
Dec 1, 2007
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AMES
Anybody have any idea about what putting an egress window in my Ames home basement might run? Also, what kind of space (width) is required to make it happen? I'll have to start shopping and getting quotes soon, but I really have no idea what kind of money I'm looking at here. Thanks in advance.
 
We put a 4' x 4' egress in our basement about 4 years ago, it ran about $3000 for the labor, window, install etc.
 
When I lived in Mason City, another buddy and I put in 3 egress windows for people. We dug the hole ourselves and cut the concrete with a circular cement saw. We did it for about $700 in materials and $700 for labor and were still between $750-$1,500 cheaper then the construction outfits in town.

It's a lot of work but if you have any skills at all you'll save a ton of money.
 
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After watching the guys that did this for us, and watching them bust their butts for 2 days, it was the best outsourcing I think I have ever done on a project. No way I would want to cut concrete for 5 hrs and dig a whole for another half day.
 
brianhos said:
After watching the guys that did this for us, and watching them bust their butts for 2 days, it was the best outsourcing I think I have ever done on a project. No way I would want to cut concrete for 5 hrs and dig a whole for another half day.
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I assume that you had a poured concrete foundation as opposed to block. Doing a cutout on block shouldn't be too bad of a job. I would think that guys who do it for a living would go at it with the right saw and blade to make even concrete not that much of a struggle.
 
I grew up on a farm so I'm used to hard work. Two of us busted our butts spending probably 2-3 hours digging the whole, 2 hours cutting the concrete with a concrete saw and the rest of the time was doing the fun stuff, which is framing the window and doing the finish work. All that made us each of us around $1,500 for the 3 jobs we did. I'll bust my butt working when it makes me $60/hour in cold cash in addition to saving the guy I am doing it for around $750-1,500 as well.

Hard work never killed nobody.
 
The last window we did sucked a little more then the first ones because it was a converted HUD housing house in which they have a little different guidelines in building that we had no clue about. One of which is pouring 18" walls for the basement and using more re-rod. Don't know if it is a higher insulation factor or what but it did suck major cutting that wall. I'll do it again in a heartbeat though.
 
If you are looking for a company to do it, we had midwest basement systems out of DSM do ours.
 
I sell egress windows and wells for a living. Do you want to try this yourself? I have a great power point presentation on how to do this if you are handy. Personally I would do everything but the hole cutting. You can hire someone to come over and do this for about $400 and it is worth every penny. It takes them about 1 hour. To do the whole job would cost around $2600 materials included. I can give you two names to bid the job. PM me if you want them. Like i say the hardest part is the cutting. The rest any carpenter can do. It takes a full day(eight hours) to hand dig a hole.
 
8 hours to dig the hole??? What are you using a snow shovel. It took me and a buddy at most 4 hours to dig each hole. We used sand shovels, a spade and dumped quite a bit of water on it to soften it up.

Otherwise, I agree the if you're handy at all you can do this and safe some serious coin.
 
CYKID said:
I sell egress windows and wells for a living. Do you want to try this yourself? I have a great power point presentation on how to do this if you are handy. Personally I would do everything but the hole cutting. You can hire someone to come over and do this for about $400 and it is worth every penny. It takes them about 1 hour. To do the whole job would cost around $2600 materials included. I can give you two names to bid the job. PM me if you want them. Like i say the hardest part is the cutting. The rest any carpenter can do. It takes a full day(eight hours) to hand dig a hole.
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Who do you recommend to do the hole cutting?
I've been meaning to have a part of my basement wall cut out to put in some french doors (basically converting a window to a door).
 
BuzzBuzzBuzz said:
Anybody have any idea about what putting an egress window in my Ames home basement might run? Also, what kind of space (width) is required to make it happen? I'll have to start shopping and getting quotes soon, but I really have no idea what kind of money I'm looking at here. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

To meet egress codes, the window has to meet the following dimensions: Clear openable area 5.7sqft, clear openable width of 20" and clear openable height of 24". I work at a lumber yard and sell Andersen Windows. The smallest egress casement window Andersen sells is a CW135 (RO 2'4-7/8 x 3'5-3/8"). It has a retail price of $333.70 with out extension jambs, with a block wall they would be really wide and it would be just as easy for the contractor to build something. You should be able to get the window for around 283.81 plus tax. I'm not really sure on installation, I would check with a local contractor. PM me if you have any other questions.
 
neighbors had one done last year for $3000. They came with a mini track-excavator. Started at 9:00 AM and were done by 4:00PM.
 
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