Yorkville Window Well Covers & Basement Windows
Yorkville amends the residential code with its own window well rule: safety covers have to support at least 250 pounds. The model code does not require that. Yorkville does — so if you are shopping covers here, that is the number to check first.
The city — formally the United City of Yorkville, created in 1957 when Yorkville south of the Fox River merged with Bristol to the north — is also one of the newest-built places we serve. The median home was built in 2003, and 63% of the housing went up between 1990 and 2009. Kendall County was the fastest-growing county in the United States between 2000 and 2007.
Yorkville's own rules for wells and sumps
The city amended IRC Section R310.4 to require that window well safety covers be capable of supporting at least 250 pounds of load. It also sets its own sump rules: discharges must either connect to a public storm sewer or run to a controlled grade discharge, and may not discharge directly onto a street, sidewalk or bike path. Crawl spaces have to be provided with a sump pit under specified conditions, with exceptions where there is a basement.
Basement finishing has its own permit type here, and the city's handout asks for plans showing the size and location of all doors and windows and — in its words — all egress window details. Scheduling inspections is the homeowner's responsibility, with one business day's notice.
Building Safety & Zoning is at 630-553-8545. For what it is worth, our covers are G.E. Lexan rated to 800 pounds, so the 250-pound requirement is not a stretch — but a stock bubble cover from a hardware store will not meet it.
A river and two flashy creeks
The Fox River runs through downtown Yorkville, and two tributaries have gauges of their own: Blackberry Creek and Rob Roy Creek. Kendall County granted the city $500,000 in 2023 for work on the Rob Roy drainage system.
The flood of record is July 17 and 18, 1996 — over sixteen inches of rain in 24 hours, Blackberry Creek out of its banks, extensive damage to homes from Yorkville west to Millington, $50 to $100 million in countywide property damage and hundreds evacuated. A 2007 USGS study later mapped Blackberry Creek's 100-year floodplain at roughly 3,699 acres, with 25 homes inside it.
Most Yorkville homes are nowhere near that floodplain. They are 1990s and 2000s houses whose original window wells and drain tile are now twenty to thirty-five years old — which is its own kind of deadline, and the one we are usually called about.
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Yorkville Window Well Covers | Yorkville Window Wells | Yorkville Egress Window Wells | Yorkville Well Covers | Yorkville Basement Window Well Covers