Egress Window Woes

Five months after we've moved into our new house, one of the things we are most grateful for is the fact that we chose a builder who promises to make things right. Every house is different. Every plot of land is different. And without a doubt, there will be things that come up after you move in. Fortunately, there are very few things that have needed to be tweaked or fixed after we moved in. The only real issue we've had has been with out egress window. 

For some odd reason, I didn't get a good picture of the window after the landscaping was finished, but here's a close up of it while the stone wall was being set. It looked great and poured a lot of natural light into the basement.

The downside of our egress window is that it didn't do a good job of keeping water out when it rained.

The first fix was to dig out the rocks, clean out the drain, dig under the window a little further and replace everything again. It didn't work.

The second fix was to dig out the rocks, clean out the drain, add three more drains, and replace everything again. That also didn't work. 

The final fix was to put in a window well. Todd from Charis said that Mike would be over soon to get started. I looked outside a few minutes later and saw this. 

We weren't crazy about the look of a window well, but we knew Mike would make it look great.

Setting in the window well. 

Top view of the window well. You can see the top step.

Filling in around the window well with fresh soil. You can see the old drain by the gutter.

Adding soil to the back of the window well.

No more walk out.

Filling up the steps with rocks. We kept all four drains by the window.

Mike did a GREAT job hiding the window well by using re-using our stones to build another wall, plus stairs up to our spigot.

Ready for the mulch.

And done! The rock wall goes right along our property line. At this point, we don't have a neighbor on this side of the house.

Better view of the stairs.

Inside the window well.

Mike did a great job of covering up all the plastic.

Here's a peek from inside, before:

And after:

The best part is that it is currently POURING out and our basement is perfectly dry. Thank you, Charis, for making it right!