Montgomery Window Well Covers & Basement Windows
The highest crest ever recorded on the Fox River at the Montgomery gauge was 16.5 feet, in July 1996 — the same storm that dropped 16.94 inches on the Blackberry Creek watershed, the largest single-day rainfall in Illinois history.
And here is the nuance the state's own flood commission adds, which is worth knowing before you panic about the river: at Montgomery, no event has ever exceeded the 10-year flood elevation. The Fox behaves itself here better than that headline number suggests. Which means the basement water people call us about is usually not the river at all.
The village will come and look at your property
Montgomery participates in the National Flood Insurance Program and employs a Certified Floodplain Manager who will make an on-site visit to your property, look at your stormwater drainage concerns, and discuss financial assistance for flood mitigation. That is a genuinely useful service and not every village offers it. The number is (630) 896-8080.
The village also maintains an online flood gauges page, helps residents interpret FEMA flood maps, and will assist with petitioning for a map amendment if you believe your property is mapped incorrectly.
Blackberry Creek has its own gauge near Montgomery, and the Fox River gauge here covers a drainage area of 1,732 square miles. Documented flood years in this stretch of the basin: 1996, June and September 2008, April 2013 and July 2017.
Permits and egress in Montgomery
The village has adopted the 2021 ICC family of codes along with the 2020 NEC. A permit must be obtained before work begins, and all construction must be done by a contractor licensed with the Village of Montgomery — worth confirming with anyone you hire, us included.
Montgomery publishes a Basement Finishing Permit Requirements handout, which confirms basement work is permitted work here. We were not able to retrieve that document to read its specifics, so ask the Building Division for a copy at (630) 896-8080, extension 9023, before you order materials. We would rather point you at the source than paraphrase something we have not read.
The baseline requirements are 5.7 square feet of net clear opening, 24 inches of clear height, 20 inches of width, a sill no more than 44 inches above the floor, a well of at least 9 square feet with 36 inches of projection and width, a ladder past 44 inches deep, and a cover that opens from inside without a key, a tool or special knowledge.
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