Window Well Guides

DIY Window Well Covers: How to Build One
How to build a window well cover from wood and polycarbonate, what it will cost you, and the four places homemade covers fail — written by people who make the bought kind. Read more...
Do I Need a Window Well Cover?
Four reasons to put a cover on, two situations where you can skip it, and the one problem people buy a cover to solve that a cover will not solve. Read more...
Plastic vs Steel Window Well Covers: Which Lasts?
Moulded plastic domes are cheap, light and let in light. Steel costs more and carries snow. Here is where each one actually fails, and which suits a Canadian winter. Read more...
How to Install a Window Well Cover
How to measure, fit and attach a window well cover — framed covers, bubble covers, and what changes if the window is a bedroom exit or the well sits under a deck. Read more...
Galvanized or Powder Coated: Which Finish to Buy
Both start as the same 20-gauge G-90 galvanized steel. What separates them is a week or two of lead time, some money, and whether anyone is going to look at it. Read more...
Replacing a Rusted Window Well
When a well is worth replacing rather than patching, why the old one is the wrong thing to measure, and how to get the new size right on a hole that has already moved. Read more...
Why Your Window Well Fills With Water
Water in a window well arrives from above, from the side or from below, and the fix is different for each. Work out which one you have before buying anything. Read more...
How to Install a Window Well
The steel is the easy part. Most of the work — and all of the difference between a well that lasts and one that does not — happens in the hole before the well goes in. Read more...
Window Well Covers: Steel, Aluminum or Polycarbonate?
A cover is doing one of three jobs: keeping water out, keeping people and animals out, or letting light in. Which material is right depends entirely on which of those you actually care about. Read more...
Window Well Egress Requirements in Canada
What the National Building Code asks of a basement bedroom window, why the 30-inch projection is the number that matters, and where the provinces write their own rules. Read more...
How to Measure for a Window Well
Three numbers decide which well fits: width, projection and height. Here is where to put the tape, which one to take from the hole instead of the window, and the two mistakes that account for most wrong orders. Read more...