Plainfield Window Well Covers & Basement Windows
Plainfield is the newest-built town we serve, and it is not close. The median home here was built in 2003, and 71% of the housing stock went up between 1990 and 2009. Only about three homes in a hundred predate 1940. The village went from 4,557 residents in 1990 to nearly 40,000 by 2010.
So this is not a retrofit market. The wells here are mostly original builder-grade corrugated steel, set when the house was built and now twenty to thirty-five years old. That is exactly the age at which they rust through at the base, settle away from the foundation, and lose the drainage stone that was supposed to keep them empty.
Flat ground, one river, and Lily Cache Creek
Plainfield sits on the bed of a glacial lake, which is a geologist's way of saying the ground is flat and water does not leave it in a hurry. The DuPage River runs through town — by the time it reaches here the East and West branches have already joined into one main stem — and Lily Cache Creek drains roughly 28 square miles into it.
In April 2013 the river crested above 16 feet against a 12-foot flood stage. The Marybrook subdivision was evacuated and basements flooded. The same reach flooded in 1996 and again in 2008. USGS has since mapped flood inundation across the 15.5 miles of river from Plainfield down to Shorewood.
On flat ground, a window well is a bucket. It fills from the surface, not from the river, and it will keep filling until the water finds the sill. That is the failure we are usually called about here, and it is the cheapest one to prevent.
Permits and egress in Plainfield
Plainfield has adopted the 2021 International Residential Code, along with the 2021 IBC, IPMC and IEBC and the village's own 2021 building code. That is clearly published and we are comfortable quoting it.
What the village does not publish is a per-project permit list — applications run through its online permitting portal instead. So rather than guess whether your particular job needs one, call Code Enforcement at (815) 267-7212 and describe the work.
Under the 2021 IRC your escape window needs 5.7 square feet of net clear opening, at least 24 inches of clear height and 20 inches of width, and a sill no more than 44 inches above the finished floor. The well needs at least 9 square feet with 36 inches of projection and width, a permanent ladder or steps if it is deeper than 44 inches, and a cover that comes off from the inside without a key, a tool or special knowledge.
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Plainfield Window Well Covers | Plainfield Window Wells | Plainfield Egress Window Wells | Plainfield Well Covers | Plainfield Basement Window Well Covers