Questions About Cutting Egress Into Concrete
Every answer on this site, in one place and at full length. The five at the top are the questions Google surfaces on the Calgary egress search, and they are the ones the rest of the site links back to here. Below them are the questions that belong to a particular piece of work — the window, the well, the doorway, the suite file, the permit.
Two things you will not find. Prices: we do not publish a figure for structural cutting, and the cost answer below explains what moves it instead. And City of Calgary fees, thresholds and timelines: those belong to the authority reviewing your file, and we confirm them for your address rather than stating them on their behalf.
People also ask
The five questions we field most often, wherever in the Calgary area the house is.
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We do not publish a figure for this, and the reason is not coyness.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.
Do I need a building permit for an egress window in Calgary?
Cutting a new opening into a foundation wall is a structural alteration, not a window replacement, and that is permit territory. Be careful with anyone who tells you otherwise on the phone. What we deliberately do not do on this page is quote you a threshold, a fee or a turnaround for the City of Calgary — those are the authority's to state, they change, and being confidently wrong about them on a compliance job is worse than saying nothing. What we do instead is concrete: before anything is cut we confirm the requirement with the authority having jurisdiction for your specific address, and where a permit is required we apply for it under our own file and deal with the questions that come back, rather than handing you a folder and wishing you luck. Outside the city the answer can differ, because the authority is a different office — Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane and the surrounding counties each review their own files. Give us the address and we will confirm what it needs before you commit to anything.
What are the Calgary secondary suite egress rules?
Under the building code, the escape opening has to give a minimum unobstructed clear opening of 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft), with neither the height nor the width of that opening less than 380 mm (15"), and a sill no higher than 1.5 m above finished floor. It must open from the inside without tools or special knowledge — no removed screws, no lifted-out sash, no key. Where the opening is served by a window well, the well has to hold 760 mm clear in front of the open sash, so the window is not blocked by its own well. 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. If you have been searching for the legal basement window size in Alberta, those are the numbers — and the size that counts is the opening, not the window. Those are the egress figures and they are the ones we work to. A suite file also gets reviewed for things that are not egress at all — fire separations, interconnected alarms, ceiling heights — and those are separate items an inspector assesses on their own merits. A compliant window does not settle them, and we will not pretend it does.
Does each room in a basement need an egress window?
No — the requirement does not attach to every room in a finished basement. It attaches to rooms used for sleeping, and where a bedroom below grade is served by an escape window, that window has to give 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft) clear, with no dimension under 380 mm (15") and a sill no higher than 1.5 m above finished floor. That much is published and we will state it. What we will not do is hand you a rule for the rest of the basement — the rec room, the utility room, the office at the bottom of the stairs — because whether a given room is treated as a sleeping room on your file is the inspector's determination from the plans and the layout, not ours. That is also where people get caught out. A room drawn as a den, an office or a flex space can be reviewed as a bedroom, and no contractor can promise you which way it will land. If you are finishing a basement in Calgary and you are not certain how your rooms will be read, that question belongs to the authority having jurisdiction and to whoever is drawing your plans, and it is far cheaper asked before the framing goes up than after. What we can give you is measurements: we measure every below-grade opening in the house against the code figures and tell you which rooms already have an opening that would pass and which do not, so you know where you stand whichever way the labels fall.
Can I install my own egress window?
Nothing stops you working on your own house, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But the window is the easy part of this job, and it is not the part that goes wrong. What a homeowner can realistically take on: sourcing the unit, hand-digging the excavation on a tight lot where a machine was never going to fit — after locates, which whoever is digging should request — setting the well, placing the drainage rock, backfilling in lifts and putting the yard back. People do exactly that and save real labour. The opening itself is a different order of problem. Cutting a new opening into a foundation wall is a structural alteration to a load-bearing wall, not a window swap. The cutting wants a tracked diamond wall saw that will go straight through concrete and rebar and leave a square edge, with the section removed in controlled pieces rather than hammered out — hammering puts energy into the wall you are keeping. Then the wall above the opening has to be carried by a lintel sized for the span and the load over it, and that sizing is a calculation from the wall thickness, the reinforcement and what is bearing above, not a number off a chart. Where the scope warrants it, it comes stamped by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. And a new opening in a foundation wall is permit territory whoever is holding the saw. The part worth thinking about is not the day of the cut, it is later: a structural opening made without the permit it needed does not stay invisible. It surfaces when the house is sold and a buyer asks what was permitted, when a suite goes in front of the City, or when an insurer starts asking questions after a basement claim. Unwinding it then costs more than doing it once. If you want to do the digging and the finishing yourself and have us cut and carry the opening, tell us at the quote — we will scope it that way.
The figures every answer here works to
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.
Basement Egress Window Installation
A code-legal opening, sawn into poured concrete. See how the work is done .
Can you cut an opening into a poured foundation without damaging the wall?
That is the whole reason the work is done with a wall saw rather than a hammer. A diamond blade tracked on the wall cuts a clean, square line through concrete and through rebar, and the cut section is removed in controlled pieces rather than broken out. Percussive demolition puts energy into the wall you are keeping and can crack it well beyond the opening. The load path matters as much as the cutting: a structural steel lintel is set to carry the wall above the opening, and on a wall we have concerns about — older unreinforced concrete, block, or anything already showing movement — that gets reviewed before we quote rather than discovered halfway through.
My basement window looks big enough. Can I keep it and just enlarge the well?
Sometimes, and it is always worth measuring before you spend money cutting concrete. 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. So the first thing to do is measure the actual opening with the sash fully open, both ways, and check the sill height off the finished floor. If the opening passes and only the well is short, then yes — the well is the cheaper fix, and we will tell you that rather than sell you a saw. If the opening itself is short in either dimension, or the sill sits too high, no amount of well work changes it and the wall has to be cut.
Do I need a steel lintel over the opening?
Assume yes. Concrete above an opening has to be carried by something, and on a cut opening that is a lintel sized for the span and the load above it. The size is not a catalogue lookup — it depends on the width of the opening, the wall thickness, what is bearing above and how the existing wall is reinforced. Where the scope or the permit warrants it, that sizing is done and stamped by an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. rather than assumed from what worked on the last house.
What happens to my yard, and where does the excavated soil go?
Exposing the outside face of the wall down past the sill line means a real excavation against your foundation, and the spoil has to go somewhere. On a lot with machine access we dig and haul; on a tight Calgary side yard it can be a hand dig with the material carried out and taken away. We tell you before we start which one your lot is, because it is one of the larger swings in the price. Reinstatement is quoted explicitly: backfill in lifts, grade sloped to shed water away from the wall, and sod, paving, decking or hardscape put back only where the quote says so. Anything we cannot restore to its original condition — mature planting, stamped concrete, an interlocking patio — you hear about at the quote, not afterwards.
Legal Secondary Suite Egress Compliance
Clear the egress item that failed your suite inspection. See how the work is done .
My suite failed inspection on egress. What happens now?
Send us what the inspector actually wrote — the report or the application notes, not a phone summary of it. We work from the file. Every below-grade room in the suite gets measured against the clear opening, the minimum dimension and the sill height, and you get told which openings already pass and which do not. Then one scope covering the non-compliant openings, with the permit application and any structural drawings it needs. The point of working this way is that you fix what failed rather than what a contractor guessed had failed.
Can the egress work be done while the suite is occupied?
Usually, provided it is planned and the tenant is told what is coming. The disruptive part is short and it is loud — the saw cut and the removal of the concrete section. The excavation outside runs longer but stays out of the unit. We sequence the openings so the suite loses one room at a time rather than all of them, and so no wall stands open to weather any longer than it has to. What we will not do is publish a number of days for it. The wall, the access and the weather set that, and we would rather commit to a schedule after we have seen the wall than put one on a web page and walk it back later.
Can an existing basement window be used for the suite?
Often it cannot, and the reason is almost always the same. 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. A slider that measures generously across the rough opening can lose most of that once you only count what actually opens. Sill height is the other common failure: the maximum is 1.5 m above finished floor, and a window set high in the wall does not qualify however large it is. We measure both before anyone talks about cutting.
Can you make an illegal basement suite legal?
We can clear the egress item, and on many files egress is the item that is stopping everything else. It is rarely the only item. A suite file is also reviewed for fire separation, alarms, ceiling height, ventilation and — separately from the building code entirely — whether the use is permitted at that address. Those belong to other trades, to the municipality, and sometimes to a designer. We will tell you plainly what a compliant opening does and does not resolve, and we would rather do that at the quote than have you discover it at re-inspection.
Basement Separate Entrances & Walk-Out Doorways
A separate entrance cut through a solid foundation wall. See how the work is done .
Can you cut a full walk-out door into a poured concrete foundation?
Yes. A wall saw will cut a full-height doorway out of a solid poured foundation, and it is work we do. The cut is the same principle as an egress window at a much larger scale — a tracked diamond blade straight through concrete and rebar, and the section taken out in controlled pieces rather than broken out, because percussive demolition puts energy into the wall you are keeping. What separates it from a window is how much wall leaves: a doorway is a considerably larger structural event and has to be planned as one, with the load picked up by a sized lintel or header and, where the review calls for it, temporary shoring in place before the blade does anything. Older block and unreinforced walls are a different conversation again. And the second half of the answer is not the wall at all — it is your lot. Grade decides whether what you actually get is a true walk-out onto ground you can step out onto, or a below-grade stairwell entrance held open permanently by retaining walls and drainage. Both are common in Calgary, and the slope of your yard settles which one you are buying.
What does a separate basement entrance cost in Calgary?
We do not publish a figure, for the same reason we do not publish one for a window: the spread on this job is wide enough that a number on a page would mislead more people than it helped. The drivers are worth knowing, because they are the ones you can check on your own lot. The wall — thickness, material, whether it is reinforced, and whether an older block or unreinforced wall needs an engineer's eyes before anything is quoted. What is bearing above the opening, which sets the header and decides whether temporary shoring is in scope. How much excavation the entrance takes: a true walk-out on a graded lot moves a fraction of the material a below-grade stairwell does, and that single difference is usually the biggest swing in the whole quote. Whether a machine can reach the wall down a side yard or a lane, or the dig is by hand with the spoil carried out. The retaining system and the permanent drainage that keeps a stairwell from becoming a cistern against your foundation. Stairs, landing and the door unit itself. Reinstatement of whatever the excavation crosses — sod, paving, decking, hardscape. And whether stamped structural drawings and a permit are part of the scope. We measure the wall, walk the grade, tell you which of those apply to your address in Calgary and quote the job in front of us.
Do I need a permit for a separate entrance to a basement?
Work on the assumption that you do. Cutting a full-height doorway out of a foundation wall is a structural alteration to a load-bearing wall, and it is a bigger one than an egress window — treat anyone who waves it off on the phone with suspicion. There is usually a second question sitting behind it, too. A separate entrance is very often being cut because somebody intends a suite, and a suite raises matters that are not structural at all: whether that use is permitted at your address, and what the file has to contain. Those are the municipality's to answer, and we are not going to state fees, thresholds, forms or timelines on their behalf on this page. What we do instead is confirm what your specific address requires with the authority having jurisdiction — the City of Calgary, or Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane or the county office if you are outside the city — and where a permit is needed we apply for it under our own file and handle the questions that come back. Give us the address before you commit to anything.
What is the difference between a walk-out and a walk-up entrance?
Grade decides it, not the wall. A true walk-out needs the ground outside the basement to already be near floor level — a sloped lot, so the door opens onto something you can walk out onto. A walk-up, or stairwell entrance, is what you build when the lot is flat: the same doorway cut into the wall, but opening into an excavated stairwell with retaining walls, drainage and steps holding it open permanently. Both are common in Calgary and both are legitimate. The walk-up carries more excavation, more retaining and a permanent drainage obligation, so it is a different job with a different price. Look at your yard before you fall in love with the word walk-out.
Does cutting a doorway weaken the foundation?
It removes wall, so the honest answer is that it changes how the structure carries load, and the design is what keeps that safe. A sized steel lintel or header picks up what the removed wall was carrying and delivers it into the wall on either side of the opening. Where the review calls for it, temporary shoring supports the structure while the section is out. On a doorway this is engineering, not judgement: the opening width, the load above and the condition of the existing wall are the inputs, and an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. is involved where the scope warrants it. A contractor who will quote a full-height opening over the phone without any of that is quoting a risk they intend you to carry. How wide an opening you can have is an output of that same review rather than an input to it: what is bearing above, how far the load has to travel sideways, what the wall is made of and how it is reinforced. There is no catalogue maximum, and wider openings need heavier headers and can need intermediate support that changes the plan you had in your head. Tell us the door unit you want and we will tell you what it takes to carry it — including when the answer is that a narrower opening is the sensible one.
Can you cut a doorway into an older block or unreinforced wall?
Sometimes, and it is a different conversation from cutting modern poured concrete. Unreinforced concrete and concrete block behave differently when you remove a section of them, and older walls have often been carrying an eccentric load or a bit of movement for decades before anyone proposed cutting a door in one. On those walls we want eyes on the wall and, where warranted, an engineer's review before we quote — not after. If the answer is that the wall should not have a full-height opening cut into it, or should not have one in the place you want it, we will say so and tell you what the alternative is.
Window Wells & Stairwell Retaining Systems
Wells, retaining and drainage that hold the ground back. See how the work is done .
How big does an egress window well have to be?
The governing figure is clear projection: the well has to hold 760 mm clear in front of the open sash, so the window can actually be used as an exit rather than being blocked by the well that serves it. That means the well is sized from the window it serves, not chosen off a shelf, and a sash that swings out eats into the projection it needs. Any well deeper than 1.2 m needs a permanent ladder or steps that do not reduce the required clear projection. Depth is set by your sill height against the outside grade, which is why two identical windows on the same street can need very different wells.
Do I need a ladder or steps in the well?
Any well deeper than 1.2 m needs a permanent ladder or steps that do not reduce the required clear projection. The second half of that sentence is the part people miss: a ladder bolted into a well that only just met 760 mm clear can push the well out of compliance by taking up the space the code requires be left clear. It is one of the more common reasons a finished well fails on review. The well and the ladder get sized together, not sequentially.
Where does the water in a window well go?
Somewhere deliberate, or it goes into your basement. A well with no drainage is a bucket held against your foundation wall, and every rain and every melt fills it. The drainage goes in before the well is set: clear rock in the base, and a drain tied either into the weeping tile at the footing or into a rock sump sized for the ground it is draining into. Which of those two your house gets depends on whether there is functioning weeping tile to tie into, and that is something we establish at the excavation rather than assume from the age of the house. A cover keeps out leaves and snow; it is not a substitute for drainage.
Can I put a cover or grate over an egress well?
Yes, and most people should — an open well collects snow, leaves, rain and occasionally a pet. The condition is that the well still has to work as an exit. Anything over an egress well has to be openable from inside the well without tools or special knowledge, and it must not reduce the clear projection the code requires. That rules out anything screwed down, anything a child cannot shift and anything that needs to be lifted clear from above. We fit covers and grates that meet that condition and we will tell you if the one you bought does not.
Is a stairwell for a basement entrance just a very large window well?
No, and treating one as the other is how they fail. A window well holds back the ground around a single opening. A stairwell holds an excavation open permanently, deep enough to stand in, with a door and a set of stairs inside it and people walking through it every day. The retaining is doing a different job under a different load — soil pressure over a much bigger face, plus frost, plus whatever surcharge the yard, a driveway or a fence line puts behind it — so it gets designed rather than picked, and where the depth and the loading warrant it that design comes from an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. Drainage is the other half. A window well that ponds is a nuisance; a stairwell that ponds sits against a door. The base drain and its tie-in — weeping tile at the footing, or a sump sized for what it has to take — goes in with the retaining, not after it, and we establish at the excavation what there actually is to tie into rather than assuming it from the age of the house.
Structural Engineering & Turnkey Permits
Permits, stamped drawings and locates, handled for you. See how the work is done .
Do I need an engineer for an egress window?
It depends on the wall and on the scope, and you should be suspicious of a firm that answers this the same way every time. Cutting an opening into a foundation wall changes how that wall carries load, and where the opening is large, the wall is older or unreinforced, or the permit review asks for it, drawings and lintel sizing come from an APEGA-licensed P.Eng. and are stamped. On other jobs the review does not call for it and we will not sell you one to pad the invoice. We tell you which of those your job is before you commit, not after.
Who applies for the permit — me or you?
We do, under our own file, on the work we are doing. That means the application is written the way a plans examiner needs to read it — what is being cut, out of what wall, under what load — and that the questions that come back come to us rather than to you. We are not going to publish the fees, thresholds or timelines on this page, because those belong to the authority reviewing your file and we have no business stating them on their behalf. We confirm what your address needs with that authority and tell you before anything starts.
What is a letter of assurance and will my job need one?
It is a signed statement from the professional responsible for the design or the field review, confirming to the authority that the work was designed and reviewed against the applicable requirements. Where your permit calls for one, it comes from an APEGA-licensed P.Eng., which is the designation that carries in Alberta. Whether your particular file needs one is decided by the scope and by the office reviewing it. We confirm that with the authority rather than guessing, and where one is required it is included in the scope in writing.
What are Alberta One-Call locates, and do I need them?
Alberta One-Call is the notification service that gets buried public utilities marked before anyone digs. We request locates before we excavate against your foundation, every time, on every job — it is not optional and it is not an upcharge. What locates do not cover is privately owned services on your own property: the gas line running to a detached garage, irrigation, low-voltage runs, a hot tub feed. Those are the ones that get hit. We walk the yard with you before the dig and identify what you know about, because on a Calgary lot the owner is very often the only person who knows a line is there.
Before you call
What settles a quote, and what actually changes from one address to the next. The housing stock is the variable that matters, and each municipality and quadrant page is written about the foundations you find there, because the era a house was built in is what decides whether you are cutting poured and reinforced concrete, older unreinforced concrete, or block.
What do you need to know before you can quote my basement?
Four things settle most of a quote. The opening you have now, measured against the opening you need — the clear opening minimum is 0.35 m² (3.77 sq ft) with no dimension under 380 mm (15"). The thickness of the wall and whether it is reinforced. The distance from your finished basement floor up to the grade outside, which sets how deep the well has to be and whether it needs steps. And access: can a machine reach the wall down a side yard or a lane, or is it a hand dig past a fence, a deck and a gas meter. Photographs of the wall inside and out, and a tape measure across the existing window with the sash open, get us most of the way there before anyone drives out to look at it.
Does it matter which part of the Calgary area my house is in?
Not for whether we come — Calgary and the surrounding municipalities are all inside the service area. It matters for what the wall turns out to be, and that is set by when the house was built rather than by the postal code. Older inner-city stock can be unreinforced concrete or block; the suburban build-outs of the last three decades are generally poured and reinforced. Those cut differently, want different equipment, and carry different amounts of engineering over the opening. It also changes who reviews the permit: outside Calgary, Airdrie, Okotoks and Cochrane each review their own files. We confirm what the wall actually is on site before quoting rather than inferring it from the address.
Still holding a question this did not answer?
Send photographs of the wall inside and out and the measurement from your finished basement floor up to the sill. We will tell you what the opening takes, whether it needs an engineer, and whether the window you already have passes.
Wondering about the number? What moves the cost of an egress window .