Fort Collins Egress Windows About Fort Collins Egress Windows
Fort Collins Egress Windows is an independent local company focused on one thing: code-compliant basement egress work across Fort Collins, Larimer County, and the towns along I-25. Concrete cutting, IRC R310-compliant window installs, window wells, covers, and drainage, with the foundation cutting done by us. No siding, no roofing, no “we also do decks.” Egress.
Why a specialist matters on the Front Range
An egress window install is structural work on your foundation. Somebody is going to saw a hole roughly three feet wide through the wall that holds your house up, then build a drainage system in clay that the Colorado Geological Survey says can expand up to 20 percent by volume when it gets wet. The city’s own Emergency Escape and Rescue Windows guide requires a letter or drawings stamped by a Colorado licensed engineer for any new or altered window in a foundation wall, and it requires new wells to be designed for drainage and tied to the foundation drain where one exists. Those two rules exist because the failure modes here are not cosmetic: an undersized header, a well with no gravel column, a backfill job that slopes toward the house. Cheap installs fail in exactly those places, usually a couple of springs later.
The numbers that matter are the ones the city inspects against. Fort Collins moved to the 2024 International Codes with local amendments for permits filed on or after April 1, 2026, and Larimer County’s 2024 codes took effect January 1, 2026. The R310 targets did not move: 5.7 square feet of net clear opening (5.0 at or below grade), 24 inches of height, 20 inches of width, a sill within 44 inches of the floor, a 9 square foot well at least 36 inches out from the window, and a ladder once the well is deeper than 44 inches. A sound install sizes the window order backward from that math.
What a good Fort Collins egress job looks like
- Free on-site measure, flat quote. We put the number from the measure in writing so it matches the invoice. Foundation type, dig depth, and access set the price, and the pricing page publishes every line so you can check any quote against it.
- Permit with the right office. Fort Collins permits run through the city’s Accela Citizen Access portal; unincorporated Larimer County takes residential permits on paper; Loveland, Windsor, Wellington, Timnath, Greeley, and Berthoud each have their own building office, several using SAFEbuilt for review or inspections. The permit and inspections are required wherever you live, the fee is itemized at cost on our quote, and you should ask at the measure who files the application. The permits page walks through each.
- Engineering included in the quote. Because the city requires the stamped letter for a foundation opening, the engineer’s fee belongs on the quote as its own line, not as a surprise after the cut. Ask for it there.
- Drainage first. A well on Pierre Shale clay without a gravel column is a bucket. A well done right gets a drainage bed, an outlet to the foundation drain where there is one, and grade corrected to fall away from the house.
Straight answers up front
The permit and the final inspection belong to the city or county, not to us. Nobody can guarantee an approval or promise a room “will pass,” and you should walk away from anyone who does. The city’s egress guide is also blunt about something most contractors skip: an egress window by itself does not create a legal bedroom. A basement finish or remodel permit does, and that permit checks ceiling height, room size, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and more. If what you actually need is the whole basement bedroom conversion, we say so at the measure rather than selling you a window and leaving you with an unpermitted room.
Sometimes the cheaper job is the right job. Plenty of people who search for an egress window need a basement window replacement in an existing opening, or a well drainage rebuild at a fraction of the price. The measure sorts that out with a tape and a screwdriver, not a sales pitch.
Service area
Fort Collins proper, plus Loveland, Windsor, Wellington, Timnath, Greeley, and Berthoud. Dig season runs roughly April through mid-November. The NOAA normals for the CSU campus station put the median last spring freeze on May 1 and the first fall freeze on October 6, and the city’s frost depth is 30 inches, so winter is for measuring, engineering, and permits so your install lands early in the spring queue. Interior window swaps run all year.
Send the form with a photo of the wall or the well. We will set up the free measure and give you a written number.