Egress Window Wells in Grand Rapids, MI
A window well is a bathtub sunk against your foundation. In Kent County's glacial clay it fills unless somebody deliberately gives the water somewhere to go — which is the single detail that separates a well that lasts from one that ruins the room it was built to legalize.
Sizing a well to Michigan code
When the bottom of an egress opening sits below the surrounding ground, Michigan Residential Code R310 requires a window well, and it sets three figures: a minimum of 9 square feet of horizontal area, a minimum 36-inch horizontal projection from the foundation, and a minimum 36-inch width. Meeting the projection and the width at their minimums produces exactly 9 square feet, so those numbers are really one requirement expressed three ways.
In practice the minimum is rarely what gets built. A code-compliant egress window is wide — a casement sized to hit 5.7 square feet of net clear opening typically measures somewhere in the 40 to 60 inch range across. The well has to be wider than the window it serves, so the well ends up somewhere between 11 and 15 square feet. Building to the bare 9 square feet usually means the window can't swing.
Drainage: the part nobody sees and everybody needs
Here is the physics. You have excavated a hole against your foundation, lined it, and left the top open to the sky. Grand Rapids gets roughly 38 inches of precipitation a year plus something like 75 inches of snow. Every bit of rain and meltwater that lands in that well has exactly two options: drain down through the bottom, or rise until it reaches the window.
Draining down through the bottom is not automatic. East of the city — Ada, Cascade, Lowell — the glacial till runs heavy in clay, and clay barely percolates. North toward Rockford, Sparta and the Rogue River corridor, the soil is sandier but the water table sits high, so there is often nowhere for the water to go even in soil that would otherwise drain. Both conditions produce the same outcome from a bare well: standing water against your new window.
A well that works has a stone core — typically 8 to 12 inches of washed stone below the finished well bottom — and that core connects to something: the perimeter footing drain if it's serviceable, or a dedicated dry well set below and away from the foundation. The connection is the whole point. Stone by itself in clay just makes a slightly larger bathtub.
Grading matters just as much. The finished ground around the well should fall away from it, not toward it. A well set in a low spot collects the whole yard's runoff no matter how good the stone core is. Where a downspout discharges near the well, it gets extended or rerouted — this is a five-minute fix that prevents a recurring problem.
Well materials, honestly compared
Galvanized corrugated steel
The economical standard. Strong, quick to set, and fine for most installations. It looks industrial, and in a well that stays damp the galvanizing will eventually give up — expect decades, not a lifetime. Best value where the well is behind the house or screened by planting.
Composite / polyethylene
Molded panels, often with a textured stone or terraced appearance. They double as steps when tiered, don't corrode, and look considerably better from a patio or a kitchen window. Cost more than steel, and the tiered versions are the usual answer for a deep well.
Poured or block masonry
Built in place, permanent, and the right answer where the well is unusually large or has to retain a slope. Most expensive option and the least forgiving to modify later. Needs its own drainage and reinforcement detail.
Treated timber
Occasionally used on informal or rural properties. Cheap and easy, but it is wood sitting in wet soil against your foundation — plan on replacing it, and don't use it where the well is deep enough to be structural.
Ladders and steps
Where a well is deeper than 44 inches, the code requires permanent steps or a ladder. The specifications are precise: rungs no more than 18 inches apart, an inside width of at least 12 inches, and a projection of at least 3 inches from the wall. The ladder is allowed to encroach into the required well dimensions, but it may not impede the window from opening fully.
That last clause is where installations get failed. A ladder mounted on the wrong face of a well, directly in the arc of an outswing casement, blocks the sash. We locate the ladder against the outer wall of the well, offset from the sash swing, and check it by opening the window before we call for inspection. Tiered composite wells sidestep the problem entirely by turning the well itself into a set of steps.
Five ways a window well fails
- No stone core. The well was set on undisturbed clay and the spoil was pushed back around it. Water has nowhere to go. This is the most common failure by a wide margin.
- Frost heave. Backfilled with the same clay that came out. With something on the order of 140 freeze-thaw cycles a year here, that clay expands and contracts against the well, walking it away from the foundation and opening a gap at the flashing.
- Poor grading. The yard slopes toward the well, or a downspout discharges within a few feet of it. The stone core is then handling far more water than it was ever meant to.
- No cover, or the wrong cover. An open well collects rain, leaves, snow and the occasional animal. A cover that isn't releasable from inside is a code failure and a safety hazard. Our covers page covers the sizing and hardware.
- Undersized for the window. A well built to the 9 square foot minimum in front of a wide casement means the sash hits the well wall. It fails inspection and there's no cheap fix.
Inherited a well that floods? We look at existing wells as well as building new ones. Often the well itself is fine and the problem is entirely underneath it — in which case the repair is excavation and drainage rather than replacement, which is the cheaper outcome and one we break out separately on our cost page. We'll tell you which one you're looking at before quoting either.
Can I just drill holes in the bottom of my well?
Not usefully. The problem is almost never the well's bottom — most egress wells are open-bottomed already. The problem is that the soil underneath won't accept water. Drilling gives water a path into ground that is already saturated. The fix is excavation below the well and a connection to somewhere the water can actually leave.
Does the well have to be attached to the foundation?
Yes, and how it's attached matters. Wells are anchored to the wall with appropriate masonry fasteners and sealed at the contact so water doesn't run down behind the well and along the foundation. A well that's simply set in a hole against the wall will separate as the soil moves.
How deep will my well need to be?
It's set by the 44-inch sill rule and by your grade. The sill has to come within 44 inches of the finished basement floor, and the well bottom typically sits a few inches below the sill. Subtract that from where your ground currently sits and you have the depth. Houses sitting low relative to the yard get deep wells and, past 44 inches, a required ladder.
Can I plant around it or build a deck over it?
Planting, yes — keep root systems and mulch beds from directing water into the well, and avoid anything that will drop volumes of leaf litter into it. A deck over the well is a harder question: the opening still has to discharge to a yard or court that opens to a public way, and the well can't be enclosed in a way that traps someone. Bring that plan to the building department before building it.
Do you install wells without doing the window?
Yes. Replacing a failed well, correcting drainage on a well someone else installed, adding a ladder to bring a deep well into compliance, or fitting a proper cover are all standalone jobs we do.
Get the drainage right the first time
We'll look at your soil, your grade and your footing drain, then build a well that sheds water instead of collecting it. Free assessment, existing wells included.