Window Wells Installation & Repair
Trusted professionals in window well installation
A basement window is both attractive and useful. To ensure that both of those things remain true, a window well is often installed to protect the window from damage. Accu-Dry has installed or repaired many window wells in the Chicagoland area. Below you’ll find information on why you should pay attention to the health of your window well.
What Is the Purpose of a Window Well?
Firstly, window wells help to prevent the ground around the window from collapsing. Without a barrier in place, the effects of weather and other natural forces can cause the dirt around a basement window to lose its structure and block light from entering the window.
Basement windows often serve as emergency exits. Without a window well, collapsed dirt can prevent a clear path to open the window and escape from the opening. This can slow or entirely stop your exit plans.
The Benefits of Window Wells
Window wells also save you a lot of time in maintenance and money in repair expenses. Without a window well, you’d have to clean your basement window a lot more than you do and manually remove debris from it far more often. Water leaking through the window in the absence of the drainage system a window well allows for can also damage your basement and the valuables stored within it.
Repair Or Replace Your Home’s Window Well
The fact that window wells can save you a lot of time in maintenance doesn’t mean that they don’t require any. The window well is meant to hold air so light can come in. If the drain on yours is no longer functioning, it could behave more like a water well, holding in rainwater and collecting groundwater that puts pressure on your window and can damage it and come seeping through the window into your basement.
Two major factors can contribute to the degradation of the well itself: rust and a shifting landscape. A metal window well does an admirable job protecting your window from water but can take the water damage itself instead. Over time, the well can rust and lose its structural integrity. Soil erosion and settling can also shift the landscape, causing the well to become misaligned or unstable. Freeze and thaw cycles that pull the window well away from the wall are the most common form of damage.
If these situations have impacted your window well, it’s important to have it repaired or replaced to maintain the protections it offers. Whether the existing well can be repaired or a new window well installation is in order can be determined by a professional.
Let Accu-Dry Basement Waterproofing Experts Help
Beyond window wells, Accu-Dry Basement Waterproofing & Concrete Crawlspaces’s team of experts specializes in all areas of keeping a basement dry. Through this experience, we know the value of a properly functioning window well. If you need a new window well installation, or if your existing one needs inspection or repair, contact us today, and we’ll help keep your home safe from the damaging effects of water.
