Egress Windows in Portland and Southern Maine

The numbers an escape window has to hit

The residential code Maine uses sets the clear opening, not the frame size:

Both minimums cannot be met at once by a window that is just 24 by 20 inches: that is only 3.3 square feet. To reach 5.7, a window 24 inches high has to be about 34 inches wide, and one 20 inches wide has to be about 41 inches high. The window has to open from inside without a key, tool or special knowledge, and any bars or screens over it must release the same way.

Why a new double-hung can fail the test

A double-hung opens only half its height, and the meeting rail and frame take more. An old cape bedroom window that is 28 inches wide and 50 inches tall in the rough opening may give a clear opening well under 5.7 square feet once a replacement frame is inside it. A pocket insert, which sits inside the old frame, shrinks it further.

The fixes, roughly in order of cost:

• A full-frame replacement instead of an insert, to recover the inches the old frame takes.
• A casement in the same opening, which opens nearly its full width and height.
• A larger opening, which means a new header and a building permit.

The code also carries a replacement-window allowance: a window swapped into an existing escape opening can be the maker's largest standard size that fits the old frame or rough opening, either the same type of window or a type with at least as much clear opening. That allowance does not apply when a room becomes a bedroom for the first time. We measure every bedroom window before the order goes in.

Basement bedrooms and window wells

Turning a basement room into a bedroom brings the full escape-opening rule with it, and basements with habitable space need an escape opening of their own. Below grade, that usually means cutting the foundation for a larger window and digging an area well outside it.

The well has its own figures in the residential code: a well floor of 9 square feet or more, projecting 36 inches or more from the foundation and just as wide, and a fixed ladder or steps once it gets deeper than 44 inches. Any cover has to open from inside without tools or effort beyond what it takes to open the window.

Cutting a foundation is structural work, so it needs a permit in every town we cover, and the well needs drainage so it does not fill with water against the glass. On ledge, which is common under houses here, the excavation can turn into rock work; we look before we price.

Snow, ice and an escape window

Portland's normal season brings 68.7 inches of snow. A basement escape window buried under a drift or a plow pile, or an upstairs window frozen shut, is not an exit. Some of this is design and some is habit:

• Place new wells away from roof drip lines, driveways and the spots where snow gets shoveled or plowed.
• Use a well cover rated to carry snow that still opens from inside.
• Keep the well drain clear in spring so meltwater does not freeze against the window sill.
• Check that upper-floor casements and double-hungs open in a cold snap; weatherstripping can freeze to the sash.

Ice dams over a second-floor bedroom are a separate warning: water backing into the wall above the window can rot the head of the frame and swell the sash so it binds.

What the town offices say

Egress is the reason some towns want a permit for any window swap. Falmouth asks for a permit on any window replacement so that its office can check the escape openings. Portland lets a same-size swap go without a permit in smaller buildings but warns that you may still be responsible for meeting escape-window requirements. Cape Elizabeth and Windham exempt ordinary repairs only when they do not remove or change a required means of egress.

So the measuring matters even where no inspector will see it. A window that met the rule when the house was built, replaced with one that does not, is the kind of thing a buyer's inspector notices. Each town's page lists its own rule and its code office number; the permit guide compares them.

Upper floors, dormers and old capes

The classic Maine cape has bedrooms under the roof, lit by gable-end windows or small dormers. Those windows are often the weak point: narrow, set high above a kneewall, or so close to the eaves that a larger unit will not fit without changing the framing.

Options depend on the room:

• A casement or awning-style escape unit in the same opening, which gives more clear area than a double-hung of the same size.
• Lowering a sill that sits above 44 inches, which may be possible inside the gable wall.
• A new or enlarged dormer window, which is structural work with a permit and, inside a local historic district, design review.

Upper-floor escape windows also need a safe way down; that is a family plan rather than a code item, but it is worth having before the first winter in a new bedroom.

Glass, energy and the escape window

An escape window is still a window for energy purposes, so it carries the same U-0.30 code figure as every other replacement here, and the same ENERGY STAR Northern figure is worth buying to. Large casements in basements often sit near the floor and near a stair, so the glass may also need to be tempered under the code's safety-glazing rules.

In a basement, a bigger window means more cold glass in a room that tends to be damp. Argon-filled low-e glass, a spacer that keeps the edge warm and a well-insulated, air-sealed frame keeps condensation down. The foundation cut needs a proper buck or frame and a sill that drains to the outside of the well.

Common questions about egress windows in Portland

Where we work

Egress windows across greater Portland and southern Maine: Cumberland, York and Sagadahoc counties, from the islands of Casco Bay to the Sebago Lake towns and the New Hampshire line. Each city has its own page with the permit rule and code edition that apply there: