About Billings Egress Windows

Billings Egress Windows is a locally operated service that does one kind of work: cutting code-compliant emergency escape and rescue openings into basement walls, and building the wells and drainage that keep them dry. We connect Billings-area homeowners with insured local crews who do this every week, we publish our prices, and we handle the City of Billings permit so you do not have to learn the CityView portal on a Saturday.

What we are, and what we are not

We are not a window company that also does egress. Swapping a double-hung on the second floor and sawing a 4-foot hole through a poured foundation are different trades. Ours is the second one. Every job we take involves a foundation, a window well, or both: full egress installs, well replacement, drainage work, concrete cutting, and code upgrades for basement bedrooms that failed an inspection. We do swap basement windows in existing openings, mostly because the same customers need it and it keeps crews working through January.

We will not tell you how many years we have been in business, how many windows we have installed, or quote a review from a customer named Deb. None of that would be verifiable, and this is a trade where you should be suspicious of numbers you cannot check. What you can check: the code numbers we build to, the prices we publish, the permit we pull, and the insurance certificate any crew we send will hand you on request.

How we work

Answer first. Full installs run $3,500 to $6,500. Well replacement is $1,000 to $3,000. A basement window swap is $400 to $1,100. Permit fees are itemized. That is the pricing page in four sentences, and we would rather you know it before we drive out.

Measure on site, quote flat. Foundation type, footing depth, joist direction, grade, what is in the wall cavity, whether a mini excavator can reach the wall or the dig is by hand. All of that gets settled at the free measure, and the number you get after it does not move unless you change the job.

Build to the code, not to the inspector’s mood. Montana adopts the 2021 International Residential Code, and Section R310 gives us the numbers: 5.7 square feet net clear opening, 24 inches high, 20 inches wide, sill at 44 inches or less, well of 9 square feet at least 36 by 36 inches, ladder past 44 inches deep. We build to those everywhere we work, including Lockwood, Shepherd, Huntley, and Columbus, where no local building department inspects residential work. The next buyer’s home inspector will, and so will the appraiser.

Handle the permit, never guarantee it. Inside Billings city limits, the Building Division reviews and inspects the work. In Laurel, the city’s own building department does. We submit, we schedule, we meet the inspector. What we will not do is promise an outcome. Permits and inspections belong to the jurisdiction, and a contractor who guarantees a pass is guessing on your behalf.

Respect the ground. The Yellowstone valley’s terrace soils are clay-heavy and, in places, sodic, which the USDA soil survey describes plainly as slow-draining and high in shrink-swell. Every well we set gets a gravel drainage bed below the 36-inch frost depth Billings designs to, tied into the footing drain where one exists. Skipping that is how a $5,000 window becomes a $10,000 water problem.

Where we work

Billings first, in every neighborhood from the Heights to the West End to the South Side, and then the ring around it: Laurel, Lockwood, Shepherd, Huntley, and Columbus. We know which of those has a building department (Billings and Laurel) and which does not (the rest), and we quote and schedule the same way in all of them.

Get in touch

Use the form to tell us what you have: an unfinished basement you want to make into a bedroom, a “bedroom” an inspector just flagged, a well that fills with water, or a window that fogged up in 1998. We will come look, measure, and leave a flat quote. Common questions are answered on the FAQ.