LESLIE: Jim in Washington is on the line and needs some help with an egress window. Tell us what’s going on.
JIM: Well, I’ve got a window in my basement that I need to replace with an egress window.
TOM: OK.
JIM: And there’s plenty of square footage in the opening in the concrete wall but my window will be 54 inches off the floor, which is a little bit more than the 44 that’s required off the finished floor. And I was just trying to figure out what my options were.
TOM: So your problem is that in the basement it’s going to be 54 inches off the floor?
JIM: Yes.
TOM: Why are you putting it up so high? Is it because of the grade outside or the conditions outside?
JIM: Initially, I think that’s why they put it up so high.
TOM: Well, listen, you’re not going to achieve an escape window if it’s that high. I think what you need to do is look outside and let’s talk about some of the options there.
The BILCO Company – B-I-L-C-O – you know, kind of famous for the BILCO Door that’s that sort of metal, slanting door that covers a lot of basement doors. They have two products that are actually very efficient, very functional.
And one of them is actually particularly good-looking. One’s called a StakWEL and it’s an egress window well. Basically, it’s a very deep window well, very wide that has a ladder built into it. So you don’t really see the ladder unless you’re inside looking out. But you basically can go through the window, grab the ladder and then kind of climb up.
And the other one’s called a ScapeWEL, as in escape well. And that one’s kind of cool because it has a planter design; it’s like a terraced kind of a look to it. And that’s going to take up a little bit bigger room outside but it’s designed to do the same thing. It enables you to basically have that window at the proper height and then if you had to go through it in the event of a fire, you would easily be able to climb up out of that ScapeWEL.
So I would take a look at those products from BILCO. I’m sure there may be others that make it. I just happen to be familiar with those. I’ve seen them at the trade shows and they are pretty cool-looking. If I needed one, I’d definitely buy it.
JIM: OK. Is there any option, like building a step inside to bring you up to a …?
TOM: I mean you probably could do that but why would you want to have an extra step on the floor? That’s just going to take away from the square footage.
LESLIE: I’ve seen, similar to climbing out of a pool, sort of indentations where your feet would go in to get a foothold to climb up. I’ve seen that built into a wall when you have a similar situation. And then you climb into that egress window and then you climb out, as well. That’s a good solution if you need it but then you have to worry about the ability of somebody who might be in the space and the ability to climb out.
JIM: StakWEL and ScapeWEL.
TOM: Yep. Yeah, take a look at those BILCO products and I think you may find a solution right there.
JIM: OK. Well, thank you very much.
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