Concrete Window Well Cover?

you REALLY need basement windows for light and ventilation!! sealed ones lead to high moisture cntent, mold, trouble painting in basement from fumes, are often required by building codes and sealing will likely cause grief at home resale time.

get a steel grid and forget about it

or a plastic cap.

better yet make window larger meet ingress egress rules, at home resale your basement just became a bedroom:( Raising home sale price:)

Shiver,

What will happen when the wood supporting all of this rots?

Dave M.

thick enough with steel rebar it wood wouldnt matter but its still a very bad idea.

my conclusions after having to waterproof paint a seaed basement. later high moisture content caused much grief at resale time.

all preventable if I could of just opened a window:(

" snipped-for-privacy@aol.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@v3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

Oh - this is an OLD (100+ years) house. The basement has a 6 foot ceiling, leaks like the titanic, has huge old cracks in the floor, areas bulging up...it's ugly. My Dehumidifier from Hell solved mold and mildew problems beautifully.

Most of the water is leaking from the window well! There's no drain in the well, so the water fills up and runs over the rotting sill and under the wood cover. (Somebody boarded over the window many long years ago.)

You raise a good point. There is a window in the crawl space at ground level...but it's not easy to get to and it doesn't open. I'll have to find out more about the building codes...hadn't thought about resale. Thanks.

I don't think a homeless person would want to sleep down there! :)

thats the beauty of home repair, do some work and result? everyone wants to move to your basement:(

Dont laugh its happened here:(

" snipped-for-privacy@aol.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:

I just did a cursory check of building codes. I don't think my basement could be considered "habitable space" by any standards, with any amount of remodeling. It's something you could do in theory, but the practice would be a gigantic undertaking.

"David L. Martel" wrote in news:13iu79tktbdg951 @corp.supernews.com:

Well, I did think about that. I supposed I might use treated lumber for the supports. Also, if the cover works well enough, it shouldn't rot any faster than the rest of the house. It takes moisture to rot, and the whole point of the cover would be to keep it out. In the end, I figured it should be okay for those reasons. Any thoughts?

" snipped-for-privacy@aol.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

Well, now I'm considering the possibility of rehabbing the window. Pull the board off the opening, replace the frame, install a window and put a steel grate over the well. I suppose it would be nice to have a window to open, despite the miserable condition of the rest of the basement. The lack of a drain is a problem, though. Maybe I could buy some fish and it would be an aquarium.