What an Egress Window Costs in Calgary
We do not publish a figure for this work, and we would rather tell you why than let you find out at the quote. Cutting a structural opening is not one job priced one way. The same window, on the same street, costs differently depending on what the wall is made of, how deep the excavation has to go, whether a machine can reach it, and what has to go back afterwards.
What we can do is show you every one of those variables before anyone quotes you anything — so you can look at a number you have already been given by somebody else and tell whether the person who wrote it had actually seen your wall.
Send us the wall, get a firm number
Photographs of the wall inside and out, the measurement from your finished basement floor up to the sill, and what is on the ground outside. We put a firm figure in writing within 48 hours of the site visit, and that number holds unless the wall turns out to be something other than what we could see. If that happens you hear it while the excavation is still open, not on the invoice.
Get a quoteWhat Moves the Number
Roughly in the order they change a quote. These are the questions we ask on the phone before anyone books a site visit. If a contractor cannot tell you which of them applies to your house, they have priced a different house.
How much bigger the opening has to get
Enlarging an existing basement window is a different job from cutting a new opening into solid wall. The gap between what you have and what the code needs is the first thing we measure, because it sets how much concrete comes out and everything downstream of that.
Wall thickness and reinforcement
A thicker wall is more blade time and more weight to remove. Reinforcement is the bigger variable: cutting through rebar is slower, and how the wall is reinforced changes what the opening does to the load path above it.
What the wall is made of
Modern poured and reinforced concrete is the predictable case. Older unreinforced concrete and concrete block behave differently when a section is removed, and a pre-war wall often wants an engineer looking at it before anyone quotes. Preserved wood and ICF walls are different jobs again.
Excavation depth and spoil removal
The outside face of the wall has to be exposed past the sill line. How far down that is depends on your finished floor against the grade outside — and every cubic metre that comes out has to be stockpiled somewhere or hauled away.
Access to the wall
A machine down a lane or a wide side yard is the cheap case. A fenced inner-city yard with a deck, a gas meter and a metre of clearance is a hand dig with the spoil carried out by bucket, and that is one of the largest swings on the whole quote. We establish which one you are before we price it.
Well type and depth
Galvanized corrugated, precast concrete and poured reinforced wells are not close to each other in cost, and depth drives the choice as much as taste does. A deep well needs a system that will hold the earth back permanently, plus the permanent steps the code requires past a certain depth.
Where the water goes
A tie-in to functioning weeping tile at the footing is the clean answer. Where there is no tile to tie into, or it is not working, the alternative is a drainage rock sump sized for the ground it drains into. Which one your house gets is established at the excavation, and they price differently.
Landscaping and hardscape reinstatement
Sod and a flower bed go back cheaply. An interlocking patio, stamped concrete, a deck that has to come apart, or mature planting that will not survive the dig are a real line on the quote — and some of it cannot be put back at all. You hear that before we start, not after.
Stamped drawings and permits
Some openings need structural drawings and lintel sizing stamped by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. for the permit. Some do not. A full-height walk-out doorway almost always does; a modest window enlargement in a modern reinforced wall often does not. We tell you which yours is before you commit, and we confirm the permit requirement with the authority having jurisdiction for your address rather than assuming it.
What's In the Scope — and What Isn't
Most of the difference between two quotes for the same opening is not the rate. It is which of these lines the other quote left out.
In every quote for a cut opening
- Site measurement of the existing opening, the sill height above finished floor, and the wall
- Alberta One-Call locates requested before any excavation
- Excavation to expose the outside face of the wall past the sill line
- Diamond-blade wall sawing, with the concrete section removed in controlled pieces rather than broken out
- A structural steel lintel sized and set to carry the wall above the opening
- The window unit supplied, set, insulated, flashed and sealed
- A window well sized to the opening it serves, anchored to the wall
- Drainage rock and a drain tied to weeping tile or a rock sump
- Permanent ladder or steps where the depth of the well requires them
- Backfill in lifts and grade restored to shed water away from the wall
- Removal of all excavated spoil and cut concrete from site
Where a line here is genuinely not in the scope on your job, the quote says so explicitly rather than quietly omitting it.
Quoted separately
- Building permit fees, which are set and collected by the authority having jurisdiction
- APEGA-stamped structural drawings where the scope or the permit requires them
- Locating and protecting privately owned buried services — gas to a garage, irrigation, low-voltage runs
- Interior finishing: drywall, trim, paint and window covering around the new opening
- Reinstatement of hardscape — patio stone, interlocking brick, stamped concrete, retaining walls
- Removal and rebuilding of decks, sheds or fencing that block access to the wall
- Replacement of mature planting or trees that will not survive an excavation against the foundation
- Remediation of pre-existing foundation cracking, water ingress or movement found during excavation
- Suite work that is not egress — fire separations, alarms, ceiling height, ventilation
- Work outside the stated service area
Listed here so they are never a surprise on an invoice. Where any apply to your job they appear on the quote before you agree to anything.
What the money has to buy
From the building code. An opening has to satisfy all of these at once, and it must open from the inside without tools or special knowledge.
- Minimum clear opening
0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft)
The unobstructed area a person can actually pass through with the sash open — not the rough opening, and not the glass size.
- Minimum dimension
380 mm (15")
Neither the height nor the width of that clear opening may be less than 380 mm, whichever way the window operates.
- Maximum sill height
1.5 m above finished floor
Measured from the finished basement floor to the sill. A window set higher than this does not count as egress, whatever its size.
- Minimum well projection
760 mm clear
The window well has to hold 760 mm of clear space in front of the open sash, so the opening is usable rather than blocked by its own well.
- Ladder or steps
Required deeper than 1.2 m
Any well deeper than 1.2 m needs a permanent ladder or steps that do not reduce the required clear projection.
The 0.35 m² is a clear opening: what a person can pass through with the sash open, measured through the frame rather than across the rough opening or the glass. That distinction is the most common reason a basement window that looks large enough is failed at inspection.
Enlarging a Window vs Cutting a New Opening
The first thing that separates a modest quote from a large one is whether there is already a hole in the wall. Widening an existing basement window means less concrete comes out, the excavation is often shallower, and in a modern reinforced wall the load path above the opening may barely change.
Cutting into solid wall is a different event. There is no existing reveal to work from, the full section has to be removed in controlled pieces, and everything above the new head has to be carried by a lintel sized for it. That is more blade time, more weight to lift out, and more often a case for stamped drawings.
Nobody can tell you which of those you have from a photograph of the inside. The sill height off your finished floor, the wall thickness and how the wall is reinforced decide it, and those get confirmed on a site visit.
A full-height doorway is a third case again, and a considerably larger one — more load removed, a heavier lintel, and real engineering. How a walk-out doorway differs from a window .
The well is not a detail
Galvanized corrugated, precast concrete and poured reinforced wells are not close to each other in cost, and depth drives the choice more than taste does. On a deep opening the well and its permanent steps can be the single largest optional line on the quote. What each well type actually is .
Access is the hidden multiplier
A machine down a lane or a wide side yard is the cheap case. A fenced inner-city yard with a deck, a gas meter and a metre of clearance is a hand dig with the spoil carried out by bucket. Two identical windows on two different lots are not two identical jobs.
What has to go back
Sod and a flower bed go back cheaply. An interlocking patio, stamped concrete, a deck that has to come apart or a mature tree against the foundation are a real line, and some of it cannot be put back at all. You hear that before we start.
When You Should Not Be Buying This
Some basements do not need concrete cut at all. If the opening already meets the clear-opening and dimension figures and only the well is short, the well is the job and the wall stays as it is. If the sill sits too high above the finished floor, no well changes that and no amount of digging helps — that one is about the opening, not the ground.
If the basement is being sold as unfinished space and the buyer will develop it their own way, cutting an opening first is usually money that does not come back. And on some houses the wall, the depth and the access together make a compliant opening expensive enough that a rental room will not repay it in any sensible period. We will say so.
A compliant window is also one item, not the whole of a legal suite. Fire separations, alarms, ceiling height, ventilation and whether the use is permitted at your address are separate questions for other trades and for the municipality.
Permit requirements differ between the City of Calgary and the surrounding towns and counties. We confirm the requirement with the authority having jurisdiction for your address rather than assuming it, and an inspector confirms compliance.
People also ask
How much does an egress window cost in Calgary?
We do not publish a figure for this, and the reason is not coyness. The honest range on a cut opening is wide enough that a number on a web page would mislead more readers than it helped, and it would be a number we could not stand behind on your wall. What we can tell you is exactly what moves it. How much larger the new opening has to be than the window already there. The thickness of the wall and whether it is reinforced — a modern poured, reinforced wall cuts differently from an older unreinforced one, and both differ from block. How deep the well has to go, which is set by your sill height against the grade outside. Whether a machine can reach the wall or the excavation is a hand dig past a fence, a deck and a gas line, with the spoil carried out by bucket. The well system itself — galvanized, precast or poured — and whether its drainage ties into weeping tile or a rock sump. What the landscaping and hardscape above it will take to reinstate. And whether the opening needs stamped structural drawings and a permit. Two houses on the same block in Calgary can land far apart on those points alone. We measure the wall, tell you which of them apply to you, and quote the job in front of us.
Get a real number for your wall
Send photos of the wall inside and out and the measurement from finished floor to sill. We come back with a firm quote in writing within 48 hours of the site visit, anywhere in Calgary and the surrounding municipalities.
Not ready to quote? Read the longer guide to what an egress window costs .