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About This Project
An egress window in a basement dramatically brightens an otherwise dark, dingy room, but it also has a more serious purpose. It’s large enough to offer a safe exit from the basement in the event of fire or other emergency. Adding an egress window is essential any time you remodel your basement to make a new bedroom, office or other living space.
In this article, we’ll show you how to cut through a concrete block wall and install an egress window. If you have solid concrete walls, the process is similar, except we recommend you hire a professional for the wall cutting (more on this later).
The egress windows we installed (two 2947 Pella ProLine casement windows for $325) are substantially larger than the minimum requirement because we wanted to bring strong natural light into this basement. But you don’t have to add ones this large. An egress window must have a clear opening of at least 5.7 sq. ft.—large enough to allow a firefighter, with equipment, to enter the home through the window. In addition, the window must be at least 20 in. wide and 24 in. high (while still meeting the 5.7-sq.-ft. requirement). Finally, the bottom of the opening can be no more than 44 in. from the floor.
FIG. A Window Framing Details
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