About Billings Egress Windows

Billings Egress Windows is a local egress window service focused on 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. Our crews cut foundations for egress across the Billings area, and we publish typical prices. The City of Billings issues the permit through its CityView portal, and the application is part of the job, so you do not have to learn that portal on a Saturday.

What we do, and what we do 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, and we do the second one. Every job we take on 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. Basement window swaps in existing openings are covered too, mostly because the same homeowners need them.

You will not find a years-in-business claim, a count of windows installed, or a review from a customer named Deb here. 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 the work has to meet, the prices published here, the permit the city issues for your address, and the insurance certificate you should ask any crew to hand you before it starts.

How the work should go

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 it is better to know it before anyone drives 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 sets 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. Those numbers apply everywhere in the area, 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.

Permits are part of the job; outcomes are not guaranteed. Inside Billings city limits, the Building Division reviews and inspects the work. In Laurel, the city’s own building department does. The application, the inspection scheduling, and meeting the inspector on site are part of the job. What nobody should 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 needs 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.

Area covered

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. Only two of those have a building department (Billings and Laurel); the rest do not, and the published ranges are the same 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.