Elmhurst Window Well Covers & Basement Windows
Elmhurst homes are, on average, older than the code that governs basement escape windows. The median Elmhurst house was built in 1966, and more than half the city's housing stock went up before 1970 — including about one in seven homes built before 1940. Those basements were dug, and those window wells were set, long before today's egress requirements existed.
That is the single most common reason we get called here. A homeowner finishes a basement, adds a bedroom, and discovers the existing well is too small, too shallow, or too rusted to meet code — or they simply want the leaves, snowmelt and animals to stop collecting against a 60-year-old steel frame.
Salt Creek is only half the story
Elmhurst sits in the Salt Creek watershed, a tributary of the Des Plaines River that the city has been managing aggressively for decades. The Elmhurst Quarry Flood Control Facility holds roughly 2.7 billion gallons — about 8,300 acre-feet — of diverted creek water, and the city runs 133 miles of storm sewer and 18 stormwater pumping stations.
But the flooding that reaches basements here often has nothing to do with the creek leaving its banks. When seven inches of rain fell over fifteen hours in April 2013, the city noted the resulting flooding was not caused by Salt Creek overflowing. It was stormwater with nowhere to go — the same pattern as the 7.5 inches that fell in eight hours in July 2010 and the 9.5 inches over thirty hours back in August 1987.
Elmhurst's own stormwater program lists five kinds of flooding, and one of them is seepage: water entering a home through cracks in the foundation or around unsealed windows. That is exactly what an open, undersized or failing window well feeds. You do not have to be in a floodplain for a full window well to push water past a basement window frame.
Permits and egress in Elmhurst
Elmhurst has adopted the 2021 edition of the International Code series, with local amendments in Chapter 24 of the municipal code. Permits are required for replacement windows, and egress is a specific review item on the city's residential permit checklist — so basement window work gets looked at, not waved through.
Permits go through the Community Development Department's Building Division at 209 N. York Street, and plans are submitted electronically. If you are not sure whether your project needs a permit, call them at 630-530-3030 before you start — we are happy to walk through what your wells would need either way.
For an egress well, the code requires at least 9 square feet of horizontal area with a projection and width of at least 36 inches, a permanent ladder or steps in any well deeper than 44 inches, and a cover that releases from inside without a key, a tool or special knowledge. Every egress cover and ladder we install in Elmhurst is built to meet those requirements.
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Elmhurst Window Well Covers | Elmhurst Window Wells | Elmhurst Egress Window Wells | Elmhurst Well Covers | Elmhurst Basement Window Well Covers