Concrete Cutting for Basement Openings in Billings

Concrete cutting is how an egress window, a walkout door, or an enlarged basement window opening gets into a foundation wall: diamond-blade sawing of poured concrete or course-by-course removal of block, followed by a lintel that carries the wall above. In Billings, cutting is priced inside the full egress installation at $3,500 to $6,500 rather than as a separate service, because the cut without the excavation, framing, window, and drainage is not a job anyone should buy. This page explains the part of the job most homeowners never see.

Two kinds of walls, two kinds of cut

Billings splits by era and neighborhood.

Poured concrete. Nearly everything built from the 1970s on: the bi-levels and split-levels in the Heights, the West End subdivisions, the newer homes in Lockwood and along the Laurel side. Poured walls are typically 8 inches thick with rebar. They get cut with a diamond blade run wet, either a track-mounted wall saw for a clean, square opening or a hand saw for tight spots. The slab of wall inside the cut lines is then broken free in sections and carried out.

Concrete block. Common in the pre-1960s stock on the South Side, in the Central neighborhoods, and in the older parts of Laurel. Block walls are cut at the mortar joints and removed course by course, which is quieter and often faster than sawing solid concrete. The trade-off is structure: the hollow cores above the new opening need grouting around a steel lintel so the wall carries load across the hole.

There are also stone and rubble foundations in the oldest Billings and Laurel homes, and a few older poured walls without much reinforcement. Those get evaluated case by case at the measure.

What decides where the cut goes

Cutting a foundation is structural work, and the placement decisions happen before the saw comes out.

• Footing depth. The bottom of the opening has to stay above the footing with room for the buck and sill. The City of Billings design criteria put frost depth at 36 inches to the top of footings, which sets how deep the footing sits and therefore how low the sill can go.
• Joist direction. Where floor joists bear on the wall, the header above the opening carries them. Where they run parallel, the load is lighter. Same opening, different lintel.
• Beam pockets and point loads. A steel beam bearing on the wall or a post footing nearby moves the opening over.
• What is in the wall cavity. Wiring, plumbing, ductwork, the water service, the sewer lateral. We find them at the measure, not with the blade.
• Outside the wall. Gas meter, air conditioner, sidewalk, property line setbacks, and whether a mini excavator can reach the wall. A South Side lot with four feet to the neighbor’s fence changes the plan.

The cut, step by step

1. Excavate first. The dig outside the wall is done before any cutting, typically 5 to 6 feet deep, so the saw can work from outside and the slab can come out into the pit rather than into your basement.
2. Lay out. The opening is marked on both faces of the wall, oversized for the buck frame and sized so the finished window beats 5.7 square feet net clear with the sill at or below 44 inches.
3. Contain. The interior side gets tarped and taped; the exterior slurry is caught and contained. Wet cutting keeps silica dust down.
4. Saw. Diamond blade, wet, through the full thickness of the wall along the layout lines. On block, the mortar joints are cut and the units removed.
5. Remove. The slab is broken into pieces and hauled out. Cut concrete leaves the same day.
6. Lintel. A steel angle or channel, or an engineered header, is set above the opening in a bed of grout or on bearing pads. On block, the cores around it are grouted solid. This is the step a low bid skips.
7. Buck and window. Pressure-treated buck frame anchored to the concrete, then the window. From here the job continues as a standard egress window installation: well, drainage, backfill, and inspection.

Other openings we cut

Walkout doors. Same cut, larger. Lower Heights lots and stepped grades along the Rims sometimes allow a basement door where a window would otherwise go. Bigger lintel, bigger dig, more concrete, and a threshold detail that matters in a climate with 57 inches of snow a year.

Enlarged basement windows. Turning a 32-by-16 hopper into an egress opening means cutting the hole wider and, almost always, deeper, because the old sill rides high and the new one has to land within 44 inches of the floor. Priced within the egress range, usually toward the lower half.

Utility openings. Dryer vents, radon mitigation penetrations, mini-split line sets, new water service. Small core drills, often done the same day as a window cut.

Permits and cautions

Cutting a foundation opening inside Billings city limits is a building permit, submitted online through the Building Division’s CityView portal and inspected when done. Laurel’s own building department handles Laurel. Lockwood, Shepherd, Huntley, and Columbus have no residential building permit, because Yellowstone County issues none outside Billings and the state program exempts dwellings under five units. We size the lintel the same way in all of them.

Two honest warnings. First, do not let anyone cut a foundation without telling you what goes over the opening. “We foam it and set the window” is not an answer. Second, do not buy the cut alone. A hole in a foundation with a window and no drainage is a hole that leaks. The cut is 20 to 25 percent of the job; the rest is what keeps it dry.

Pricing and scheduling

The cut is priced inside the full egress install at $3,500 to $6,500, with block walls often at the low end and poured walls in the middle; the pricing page shows the full breakdown. Cutting is outdoor, below-grade work and follows the excavation calendar, roughly March through November. Same process in Billings, Laurel, Lockwood, Shepherd, Huntley, and Columbus. Book the free measure and we will tell you which wall, which cut, and what carries the load above it.