Egress Window Well Drain with your waterproofing project

What is egress window well drain?

A window well drain is a vertical outlet in the base of the well - usually a stone-filled shaft with a pipe running down to the footing drain, or a line taken to daylight where the lot allows - that removes water before it can reach the window. Without a working one, a window well behaves exactly like the container it resembles: rain and roof runoff collect in it, the level rises past the sill, and water enters through the window, which is not a waterproofed part of the wall and was never intended to hold back standing water.

How egress window well drain actually works

1. 1

   Establish whether a drain exists at all

   Clear the well to the base and look. Some have a stone-filled shaft with pipe, some have a few inches of gravel over soil, and some have a drain silted solid. Filling the well with a hose tells you more than any inspection.

   Watch forA well that holds water after the hose stops. That is not a well needing more gravel - it is a well with no functioning outlet, and adding stone on top of a blocked drain changes nothing.

2. 2

   Find out what the drain connects to

   A well drain has to terminate somewhere lower: most often it drops through stone and pipe to the footing drain around the foundation, sometimes it is run to daylight on a sloping lot, and sometimes it is tied into an interior perimeter system and pumped out with everything else.

   Watch forA well drain connected to nothing but the soil beneath it. In clay ground that is a hole that fills as fast as the well does, which is why these wells flood in exactly the storms that matter.

3. 3

   A new egress well is a new hole in a foundation that was previously intact

   Cutting an opening into an existing basement wall for an egress window creates a fresh path for water at a point where the wall was continuous. The cut edges, the new frame perimeter and the excavation backfilled against the wall are all new joints - and the well itself now concentrates water at that exact spot.

   Watch forA window-cutting quote that treats the well drain as an afterthought. On a retrofit egress opening, the drain and the sealing of the new perimeter are not accessories; they are the reason the project does or does not leak.

4. 4

   Correct the water arriving from above and around

   A drain sized for groundwater is not sized for a downspout. Move roof water away from the well, re-establish ground that slopes away from the rim rather than into it, and the drain has far less to do.

   Watch forA downspout discharging near the well, or a flower bed built up against its rim so surface water runs straight in. Both are cheap to correct and both overwhelm a perfectly good drain.

5. 5

   Fit a cover - the right kind, for the right reason

   A clear, sloped, well-fitted cover keeps rain, leaves and snow out of the well, which is usually more valuable than any amount of extra gravel. On an egress well the cover has to be openable from inside without tools or special knowledge; on a non-egress well it just has to shed water and be secure.

   Watch forA flat cover that ponds water, or one that traps humid air against the window. And on any egress opening, confirm the cover arrangement with your local building official - escape requirements govern, and they are not this page's call to make.

What does egress window well drain cost?

Clearing a silted well and restoring stone is a small job. Cutting a new drain shaft down to the footing drain, or trenching a run to daylight, costs considerably more - driven by depth, soil and whether there is a functioning footing drain to connect to at all.

See the full egress window well drain cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →