Egress Window Installation & Basement Window Enlarging in Cochrane
A basement window a person can actually climb out of. We enlarge the opening in your poured foundation, carry the wall above it on a steel lintel, fit and seal the new window, and build a drained well in front of it.
Egress Window Installation for Cochrane homes
Cochrane basements are mostly modern reinforced walls, so fitting an egress window into the wall is rarely the difficult part. The ground in front of it is. Compact glacial till loaded with cobbles, and bedrock getting shallower as you head west, can make digging the window well slower and costlier than the wall work. That changes how we choose the window. A unit placed as high as the room and the 1.5 m sill limit allow keeps the well shallower, and a shallower well on this soil is often the single largest saving on the job. A rock the size of a wheelbarrow at the bottom of a deep dig is exactly the surprise we try to design out.
Because so many Cochrane lots slope, some owners who ask about an egress window end up better served by a walk-out basement door on the low side, and we will raise that where the grade supports it. Most buyers are families finishing basements in homes built since the 1990s, or owners near the acreage edge wanting a better lower-level exit. Permits are issued by the Town of Cochrane under its own process, and we take care of the application for you.
From first photos to finished install
Site measure
Before any quote, we record the wall, the distance from finished floor to sill, and the clear opening the new window has to deliver.
Dig out the wall
Once Alberta One-Call has marked the buried lines, the soil outside is removed until the foundation is exposed below where the new sill will sit.
Enlarge the opening
A diamond blade saws the new outline, and the concrete is lifted out in measured sections instead of being hammered loose.
Lintel, then window
Steel goes in over the opening to take the load, and only then is the window fitted, insulated, flashed and sealed into the wall.
Well and grade
A well is placed with drainage to the weeping tile or a rock sump, the hole is refilled, and the yard is sloped so water runs off the foundation.
Permits for this work come from Town of Cochrane, and we check your wall in person before recommending a window or door or giving a quote. We don’t list prices here; see what affects the cost , or read the full service overview .