Basement Windows, Doors and Egress: Your Questions Answered
This page gathers the full version of every answer we publish. First come the five questions Calgary homeowners search most about egress windows, which other pages on the site point back to. After those, the answers are grouped by service: basement windows, window wells, exterior basement doors, secondary suites and permits.
A couple of things are deliberately missing. There are no prices; the cost answer covers the factors behind a quote instead of a figure. There are also no City of Calgary fees, review thresholds or processing times, because those are set by the office handling your application, and we check them for your address instead of guessing.
Most-asked questions
Five questions that come up on almost every call, whichever part of the Calgary region you live in.
What does egress window installation cost in Calgary?
You will not find a price for this anywhere on our site, and that is a choice rather than an oversight. A basement egress window can be a simple new unit set into an opening that already qualifies, or it can mean enlarging the opening in concrete, digging a deep well and rebuilding a patio afterwards. One published figure cannot describe both of those jobs without misleading most of the people who read it. What we can lay out is what actually sets the number. First, the gap between the window in the wall today and the opening the code asks for — a unit that fits the existing hole is a very different job from one that needs the concrete made larger. Second, the foundation: its thickness, whether it carries rebar, and whether it is poured, block or an older unreinforced pour, because each is cut and supported in its own way. Third, how deep the well must go, which follows from where the sill sits relative to the ground outside. Fourth, access — a compact machine down the lane, or a hand dig past a deck, a fence and a gas meter with every bucket of soil carried out. After that come the window unit and the well you choose, galvanized, precast or poured, and how its drainage connects to weeping tile or a rock sump. Then restoring the yard. Then whether stamped drawings and a permit belong in the scope. Neighbouring houses in Calgary can come out far apart on those items alone, which is why we measure first and price the actual wall.
Is a building permit required to add an egress window in Calgary?
Setting a new basement window into the opening that is already there and making that opening bigger are not the same job, and they are not necessarily treated the same way. Enlarging or creating an opening in a foundation wall alters a structural element, so expect it to need a permit — and be wary of any quote that brushes the question aside. We do not list City of Calgary fees, thresholds or processing times on this site. Those are the City's to publish, they get revised, and a confident mistake about them on a compliance job does real harm. Our practice is simpler to describe: for your address, we check the requirement with the authority having jurisdiction before any concrete is touched, and when a permit applies we file it ourselves and answer the reviewer's follow-up questions, so the paperwork does not land back on your kitchen table. Beyond city limits a different office reviews the file — Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane and the neighbouring counties each handle their own. Send us the address and we will find out what it needs before you sign anything.
Which egress rules apply to a Calgary secondary suite?
Alberta's building code sets the escape-opening figures. The opening has to give at least 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft) of unobstructed clear area; its height and its width must each measure at least 380 mm (15"); and the sill can sit no higher than 1.5 m above finished floor. Someone inside must be able to open it with no tool, no key and no special know-how — nothing unscrewed first, no sash lifted out of its track. When a window well serves the opening, the well must leave 760 mm clear in front of the sash once it is open, so the well never blocks the exit it exists to serve. A window well more than 1.2 m deep must have a permanent ladder or steps, and they may not cut into the clear projection the well is required to keep. The 0.35 m² refers to clear opening — the space someone can actually climb through with the sash open, measured inside the frame, not across the rough opening or the glass. Basement windows that look big enough fail inspection over this distinction more often than over anything else. Anyone looking up the legal basement window size in Alberta is usually after exactly these figures, and the measurement that settles it is the opening, never the nominal size printed on the window. These are the egress numbers we select and install basement windows to. A secondary suite file is also examined for items unrelated to egress — fire separations, interconnected alarms, ceiling height — and an inspector judges each of those on its own. A window that passes does not resolve them, and we will not suggest that it does.
Must every basement room have its own egress window?
Not every room. The escape-opening requirement is tied to rooms people sleep in. Where a below-grade bedroom relies on a window for it, that window must provide 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft) of clear opening, no dimension smaller than 380 mm (15"), and a sill no higher than 1.5 m above finished floor. Those figures are published, so we state them plainly. We stop short of giving you a rule for the other spaces — the family room, the mechanical room, the office beside the stairs — because how a particular room on your plans gets classified is decided by the inspector reviewing the layout, not by a window and door company. That is where a lot of homeowners get tripped up: a space labelled den, study or flex room can still be assessed as a bedroom, and nobody selling you windows can guarantee how it will go. If you are developing a basement in Calgary and are unsure how the rooms will be read, take that question to the authority having jurisdiction and to your plan designer before the walls are framed — it costs far less to answer then than after the drywall is up. Our part is measurement. We hold every basement window in the house up to the code figures and report which rooms already have a qualifying opening and which would need a new or larger window, so you know your position however the rooms end up labelled.
Is it possible to install an egress window yourself?
It is your house, and you are allowed to work on it — we are not going to claim otherwise. The more useful point is that setting the window unit is seldom where these projects go wrong. Plenty of homeowners handle a real share of the job well: picking and ordering the window, digging the excavation by hand on a narrow lot where equipment would never have fit (after requesting locates, which is the responsibility of whoever digs), placing the well, spreading the drainage rock, backfilling in layers and restoring the landscaping. That saves genuine labour. Making or enlarging the opening in the foundation is another matter. It is structural work on a wall that holds up the house. It calls for a diamond wall saw running on a track that slices cleanly through concrete and rebar, with the cut section lifted out in manageable pieces instead of broken out with a hammer, which sends shock into the wall that stays. The concrete over the new opening then needs a lintel matched to the span and the load above — worked out from wall thickness, reinforcement and whatever bears on it, not read from a table — and, where the scope calls for it, stamped by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. Expect a permit to apply no matter who does the cutting. The cost of skipping that step arrives later: at resale when the buyer's side wants to know what was permitted, when a suite file reaches the City, or when an insurer looks into a basement claim. Fixing it at that stage is dearer than doing it properly once. If you would rather dig and finish the yard yourself while we cut the opening and supply and set the window, mention it when you ask for a quote and we will price it that way.
The code figures these answers rely on
Set by the Alberta building code. A basement bedroom window needs to meet every one of these together, and anyone inside must be able to open it with no tools or special knowledge.
- Minimum clear opening
0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft)
The open, unobstructed space someone can really get through once the sash is out of the way — measured neither across the rough opening nor across the glass.
- Minimum dimension
380 mm (15")
Whichever way the window opens, that clear opening cannot measure under 380 mm in either direction, height or width.
- Maximum sill height
1.5 m above finished floor
Taken from the finished basement floor up to the sill. However large a window is, it does not count as egress if its sill sits above this height.
- Minimum well projection
760 mm clear
In front of the open sash, the well must keep 760 mm of clear space, so the well itself never stands in the way of the exit.
- Ladder or steps
Required deeper than 1.2 m
A window well more than 1.2 m deep must have a permanent ladder or steps, and they may not cut into the clear projection the well is required to keep.
The 0.35 m² refers to clear opening — the space someone can actually climb through with the sash open, measured inside the frame, not across the rough opening or the glass. Basement windows that look big enough fail inspection over this distinction more often than over anything else.
Egress Window Installation & Basement Window Enlarging
Basement windows enlarged and fitted to egress code. Read about this service .
Will enlarging a basement window opening crack my poured foundation?
Not when it is done properly, and the method is why. The opening is cut with a diamond blade running on a track fixed to the wall, leaving a straight, square edge through both concrete and rebar, and the piece comes out in sections sized to be handled. Breaking concrete out with a hammer or breaker drives impact through the rest of the wall and can start cracks some distance from the opening. Supporting the wall matters as much as the cut: a steel lintel goes in to carry the concrete over the new window. If a wall gives us reason for caution — old unreinforced concrete, block, or visible signs of past movement — it is assessed before we quote, not partway through the job.
My basement window seems large enough. Could a bigger well be all I need?
Possibly, and a tape measure costs a great deal less than a saw. The 0.35 m² refers to clear opening — the space someone can actually climb through with the sash open, measured inside the frame, not across the rough opening or the glass. Basement windows that look big enough fail inspection over this distinction more often than over anything else. Start by opening the sash all the way and measuring the real opening in both directions, then measure from the finished floor up to the sill. When the opening qualifies and only the well falls short, replacing the well is the less expensive route, and that is what we will recommend instead of a new cut. When the opening misses on either dimension, or the sill is set too high, no new well can fix it: the opening has to be made larger, and in most cases a new window goes in with it.
Does an enlarged basement window opening need a steel lintel?
Plan on it. Once concrete is removed from beneath it, the wall above needs support, and on a cut opening that support is a lintel matched to the span and to the load it carries. You cannot pick one from a catalogue: opening width, wall thickness, the load coming down from above and the existing reinforcement all feed into the size. When the scope or the permit calls for it, an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. sizes and stamps the lintel, rather than anyone reusing whatever went in on a previous house.
What happens to the yard during a basement window job, and where does the soil go?
To reach the outside face of the foundation below the new sill, the ground against the house has to be excavated, and that soil needs somewhere to go. Where equipment can get in, we dig mechanically and haul it off; on a narrow Calgary side yard it may be dug by hand and carried out. You will know which applies to your lot before work starts, since it is among the biggest variables in the price. Restoration is written into the quote item by item: backfill placed in layers, the grade sloped so water runs away from the foundation, and sod, paving, decks or hardscape reinstated only as the quote specifies. If something cannot go back exactly as it was — established shrubs, stamped concrete, a paver patio — we raise it when we quote, not after the fact.
Secondary Suite Egress Windows & Compliance
Suite bedroom windows brought up to inspection standard. Read about this service .
The inspector failed my suite on egress. What should I do next?
Get us the inspector's written wording — the report itself or the notes on the application, rather than someone's memory of a phone call. We scope from that document. We take the clear opening, the minimum dimension and the sill height of every basement room in the suite, and you are told plainly which windows already comply and which fall short. You then receive a single scope for the windows that fail, covering the replacement units, any concrete enlargement, the permit application and whatever structural drawings it requires. Working from the file means you correct the deficiency that was actually written up, not a contractor's guess at it.
Can egress windows be replaced while a tenant lives in the suite?
In most cases, yes, provided the work is planned and the tenant knows the schedule ahead of time. The noisy stretch is brief: cutting the concrete and lifting the section out. Digging outside takes longer but happens outside the unit. We work through the windows one room at a time so the tenant never loses every room at once, and no opening sits exposed to the weather longer than necessary. We do not put a day count on it online. The wall, the site access and the weather decide the schedule, and we would rather give you one after seeing the wall than print one here and have to retract it.
Will the existing basement window in my suite count for egress?
Frequently not, and the cause is remarkably consistent. The 0.35 m² refers to clear opening — the space someone can actually climb through with the sash open, measured inside the frame, not across the rough opening or the glass. Basement windows that look big enough fail inspection over this distinction more often than over anything else. A sliding window that looks wide across its frame can give up much of that width once only the part that actually opens is counted. The other usual failure is the sill: it may sit no higher than 1.5 m above finished floor, and a window mounted high on the wall does not qualify regardless of its size. We measure both before anyone recommends a new window or a cut.
Is it possible to turn an illegal basement suite into a legal one?
We can resolve the egress deficiency, and on plenty of files that single item is holding up everything else. It is seldom the only item, though. A suite application is also assessed for ventilation, ceiling height, alarms, fire separation and — under zoning rather than the building code — whether a suite is allowed at that address at all. Those sit with other trades, with the municipality and sometimes with a designer. When we quote, we spell out what a compliant window or entrance door does and does not settle, which is far better than learning it at re-inspection.
Basement Separate Entrance Doors & Walk-Outs
A private exterior door into the basement or suite. Read about this service .
Can a full walk-out door be cut into a poured concrete foundation?
It can, and exterior basement doors are a core part of our work. A full-height doorway comes out of a solid poured wall by the same approach as an egress window, only larger: a diamond blade on a track through concrete and rebar, with the section lifted out in pieces instead of broken out, since impact demolition stresses the wall that remains. The difference is how much wall goes. A doorway is a far bigger structural change than a window and gets planned that way — the load above is transferred onto a properly sized lintel or header, and temporary shoring goes in first wherever the review requires it. Older block or unreinforced walls need their own assessment. The rest of the answer is outside, in your yard. Grade determines whether you end up with a true walk-out that steps onto level ground or a below-grade stair entrance kept open by retaining walls and drainage. Calgary has plenty of both, and the slope of your lot decides which one you are getting — along with the door and landing that suit it.
How much does a separate basement entrance cost in Calgary?
There is no figure here either, and the logic is the same as for our windows: the range is broad enough that any number shown would mislead more readers than it would help. The cost drivers are worth understanding, though, because you can check several of them yourself. The foundation wall — how thick it is, what it is made of, whether there is rebar in it, and whether an engineer should see an older block or unreinforced wall before anything is priced. The load above the doorway, which sizes the header and determines whether temporary shoring is needed. The volume of digging: a walk-out on a sloping lot removes a small share of the soil a below-grade stairwell needs, and that alone is typically the largest swing in the price. Access — equipment down a side yard or lane, or hand excavation with the soil carried out. The retaining walls and permanent drainage that stop a stairwell from filling with water against the house. The stairs, the landing and the exterior door you choose. Restoring whatever the dig passes through, from lawn and paving to decks and hardscape. And whether stamped drawings and a permit are required. We measure the wall, look at the grade, identify which of these apply at your Calgary address and quote that job.
Is a permit needed to add a separate entrance to a basement?
Assume one is. Cutting a doorway out of a foundation wall alters a load-bearing element, and it is a larger alteration than a window, so be sceptical of anyone who dismisses it over the phone. There is often a second issue attached. Separate entrances are commonly added because a suite is planned, and a suite brings questions that are not structural at all — whether the use is allowed at your address, and what the application has to include. The municipality answers those, and we will not state its fees, thresholds, forms or timelines here. What we will do is check the requirements for your address with the authority having jurisdiction — inside city limits that is the City of Calgary; outside them it may be Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane or a county office — and, where a permit applies, file it under our name and handle the reviewer's questions. Share the address with us before you commit.
How does a walk-out differ from a walk-up basement entrance?
The lot decides, not the foundation. A genuine walk-out depends on the ground outside already being close to basement floor level, as on a sloping lot, so the door opens straight onto the yard. A walk-up, also called a stairwell entrance, is the answer on flat ground: the doorway is cut the same way, but it opens into a dug-out stairwell held open for good by retaining walls, drainage and steps. Calgary has plenty of each, and both are sound choices. A walk-up means more digging, more retaining and drainage that has to keep working indefinitely, so it is a bigger job at a bigger price. Look hard at the slope of your yard before settling on the idea of a walk-out.
Will a new basement doorway weaken my foundation?
A doorway takes away part of the wall, so the load path of the house really does change; a sound design is what makes that change safe. A properly sized steel lintel or header takes on the load the missing section used to carry and transfers it into the wall on each side. When the review requires it, temporary shoring holds the structure while the section is out. For a doorway this is an engineering exercise, not a judgement call: the inputs are how wide the opening is, how much load sits over it and what shape the wall is in, and an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. takes part where the scope calls for it. Anyone willing to price a full-height opening over the phone without that is pricing a risk they expect you to absorb. The widest door you can have comes out of that same review rather than going into it — what bears above, how far the load must spread sideways, and the material and reinforcement of the wall. No catalogue sets a limit; wider doors need heavier headers and sometimes intermediate support that changes the design you pictured. Tell us which door you have in mind and we will tell you what carrying it involves, including when a narrower door is the smarter choice.
Can a doorway be cut into an older block or unreinforced foundation?
In some cases, but it is a different assessment from modern poured concrete. Concrete block and unreinforced concrete respond differently when a section is removed, and an older wall may have been carrying an off-centre load or slow movement for decades before anyone considered a door in it. For those walls we want to inspect the wall in person and, where it is warranted, have an engineer review it before quoting rather than afterwards. If the conclusion is that the wall should not take a full-height opening, or not in the spot you had in mind, we will tell you directly and explain the alternatives — which may be a different location for the door, or a larger egress window instead.
Window Wells, Covers & Stairwell Retaining
Wells, covers and drained stairwells outside the opening. Read about this service .
What size does an egress window well need to be?
The deciding figure is clear projection: 760 mm clear must remain in front of the sash when it is open, so the window works as an exit instead of being boxed in by its own well. That means the well is matched to the window it serves rather than grabbed off a rack, and a sash that swings outward uses up part of the projection it needs. A window well more than 1.2 m deep must have a permanent ladder or steps, and they may not cut into the clear projection the well is required to keep. Depth follows from the sill height compared with the grade outside, which is why two identical windows on one street can call for very different wells.
Does an egress window well need a ladder or steps?
A window well more than 1.2 m deep must have a permanent ladder or steps, and they may not cut into the clear projection the well is required to keep. People tend to overlook the last part of that rule: bolting a ladder into a well that barely achieved 760 mm clear can make the well non-compliant, because the ladder occupies space the code requires to stay open. It is a frequent reason a completed well fails review. We size the well and the ladder together, never one after the other.
Where does water in a window well drain to?
To a place chosen on purpose — otherwise it ends up in the basement. An undrained well is a container pressed against the foundation, refilled by every storm and every thaw. Drainage is built before the well goes in: clean rock at the bottom, and a drain connected either to the weeping tile at the footing or to a rock sump sized for the surrounding soil. Which one your home gets depends on whether there is working weeping tile to connect to, and we confirm that once the excavation is open rather than guessing from the age of the house. A well cover keeps snow and debris out, but it does not replace drainage.
Can an egress window well have a cover or grate?
It can, and for most homes it should — an uncovered well gathers snow, leaves, rainwater and now and then an animal. The requirement is that the well must still function as an escape route. Any cover on an egress well must be openable by someone standing in the well, with no tools or special knowledge, and it cannot eat into the required clear projection. So nothing fastened shut, nothing too heavy for a child to push, and nothing that must be lifted off from outside. The covers and grates we supply and fit meet that test, and if one you already own does not, we will say so.
Is a basement entrance stairwell simply an oversized window well?
No — and confusing the two is exactly how stairwells fail. A window well retains the soil around one window. A stairwell keeps a deep excavation open permanently, with a door and stairs at the bottom and people using it every day. Its retaining does a different job under a different load: earth pressure across a far larger face, frost, and any added load from the yard, a driveway or a fence behind it. So it is engineered, not chosen from a catalogue, and where depth and loading require it an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. provides the design. Then there is water. A window well that holds water is an annoyance; a stairwell that holds water puts it against your basement door. The base drain and its connection — to weeping tile at the footing, or to a sump sized for the flow — are built along with the retaining walls, not added later, and we confirm at the excavation what is really there to connect to instead of assuming it.
Permits & Structural Engineering for Basement Openings
Permits, engineer-stamped drawings and locates, done for you. Read about this service .
Does an egress window need an engineer?
That depends on the wall and on what is being done to it, and a company that gives the same answer every time deserves some suspicion. Enlarging or creating an opening changes how the foundation carries load. When the opening is wide, the wall is old or unreinforced, or the permit reviewer asks for it, the drawings and lintel sizing are prepared and stamped by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. On other jobs no review calls for one, and we will not add an engineer just to inflate the bill. Either way, you hear which category your job falls into before you commit.
Who pulls the permit for basement window or door work — you or me?
We do, under our name, for the work we carry out. The application is therefore written the way a plans examiner needs it — what is being cut, from which wall, carrying what load — and the follow-up questions come to us, not to you. We will not list fees, thresholds or timelines here; those belong to whichever authority reviews your file, and it is not our place to state them on its behalf. We check what your address requires with that authority and let you know before any work begins.
What is a letter of assurance, and will my project require one?
A letter of assurance is a signed confirmation, given to the authority by the professional who designed the work or carried out field review, that the design and the review met the applicable requirements. When your permit requires one, it is issued by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng., the designation recognized in Alberta. Scope and the reviewing office decide whether your file calls for one. We ask the authority rather than assume, and when one is needed it is written into the scope.
Do I need Alberta One-Call locates before digging a window well?
Alberta One-Call is the service that arranges for buried utility lines to be marked before excavation begins. We request locates before digging beside your foundation on every job, without exception and without adding a charge for it. Locates do not include privately owned lines on your own property — a gas line to a detached garage, irrigation, low-voltage wiring, a feed to a hot tub — and those are the ones most often struck. Before we dig, we walk the yard with you and mark everything you know of, because on a Calgary property the homeowner is frequently the only person aware that a line exists.
Getting a quote
How a quote gets settled, and why it varies from one home to another. The biggest variable is the age of the house, since that tells us whether the new window or door is going into reinforced poured concrete, older unreinforced concrete or block. Each service area page describes the foundations most common in that municipality.
What information do you need to quote my basement windows or doors?
A handful of details decide most quotes. The opening you have now compared with the opening you need — the clear opening must be at least 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft), with no dimension below 380 mm (15"). How thick the foundation wall is and whether it has rebar in it. The height from the finished basement floor to the ground outside, which determines how deep the well goes and whether it needs steps. Access: whether equipment can reach the wall through a side yard or lane, or the dig is by hand, working around fences, decks and the gas meter. And, for a door, what kind of entrance you are picturing. Photos of the wall from inside and outside, plus a tape measurement across the current window with the sash open, take us a long way before anyone makes a site visit.
Does where my house sits in the Calgary area make a difference?
It makes no difference to whether we come — Calgary and the nearby municipalities are all within our service area. It does change what the foundation is likely to be, and that depends on when the house was built far more than on its postal code. Older inner-city homes may sit on unreinforced concrete or block; the suburbs built out over roughly the last thirty years are generally poured and reinforced. Those walls are cut with different equipment, need different support over a new window or door, and involve different amounts of engineering. Location also changes which office handles the permit, since Airdrie, Okotoks and Cochrane each run their own reviews separately from the City. Either way, we confirm the wall on site before quoting instead of assuming it from the address.
Didn’t find your answer?
Email or text us photos from inside and outside, with the height from your finished floor to the sill. We will let you know if your current window already measures up, what a new window or door would involve, and whether an engineer is needed.
Thinking about budget? Read what shapes egress window cost .