Egress Windows in Richmond, VA

A casement is the usual pick because the whole sash swings clear, so almost the full frame becomes opening. Virginia lets the net clear opening count whatever the window's normal operation gives you, including tilting or removing the sash, but a double-hung only ever opens half its height and a slider half its width. Run the numbers before you choose: the 20-inch minimum width and 24-inch minimum height together make only 480 square inches, about 3.3 square feet, well short of the 5.7 required. A 24-inch clear width needs roughly 34 inches of clear height to get there. Where the well is tight, an in-swing casement opens into the room instead of into the well.

Most basement egress jobs start with a saw. Poured concrete takes longer to cut and usually costs more than block, according to HomeGuide's national guide. Under Virginia's Existing Building Code, adding a window is a Level 2 alteration, and the statewide permit exemption only covers swaps that don't change the framed opening, so a new or enlarged opening needs a permit through the City of Richmond's online permit portal. Ask the installer how the wall above the cut will be carried (a steel or precast lintel, or a framed header) and how the cut edges of block cores will be filled and sealed. If the window sits under a deck or porch, it has to open fully and leave a path at least 36 inches high and 36 inches wide out to the yard.

Any escape opening whose bottom sits below grade needs an area well. Virginia sets a minimum of 9 square feet for the well's floor area, with at least 36 inches of projection out from the wall and 36 inches of width, and the window must be able to open all the way inside it. A well deeper than 44 inches needs a permanently attached ladder or steps; ladder rungs need 12 inches of inside width, must stand 3 inches off the wall and sit no more than 18 inches apart. The ladder may eat up to 6 inches of the required well size. Nationally, HomeGuide puts steel wells at $400 to $800 and plastic or composite at $600 to $1,600 before labor, with an egress ladder at $100 to $300.

A well is a hole that collects water. Virginia's code says it has to drain into the foundation drainage system, unless the house sits on the well-drained sand and gravel soils the code lists as Group I. Ask where the well's drain goes and whether a gravel bed and drain line are in the price. A cover keeps leaves and rain out, but any cover, grille or screen over the well has to release from inside without a key, a tool or more force than opening the window takes. HomeGuide lists covers at $250 to $500 or more.

Bedrooms upstairs need an escape opening too, held to the full-size rule in the code section below, since the smaller allowance applies only at grade or below. Upstairs, the sill limit cuts both ways: too high and you can't climb out, too low and a child can fall out. Low sills high off the ground trip Virginia's fall-protection rule, which is covered on our double-hung windows page; if a window opening control device goes on an egress window, it has to sit no more than 70 inches above the floor and, once released, can't shrink the opening below the required area. Swapping an existing bedroom window is easier: a replacement keeps its exemption from the size rules if it's the largest standard size that fits the frame or rough opening and opens the same way or wider.