Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Hot Dirty Manwork

Tomorrow morning, the professionals from WindowWorld of West Michigan will pay us a visit and replace the egress window in our basement. An egress window is one where you can escape from the basement in the event of an emergency. The current window is drafty and as part of our overall maintenance plan, we decided to replace it with a new double paned window.



Before the new window could be installed, I had to clear out the debris that had collected there. Over the weekend, I removed all of the leaves and I was surprised to see how much organic matter and gravel still remained in the egress space. Thus, I had some hot dirty manwork to do when I got home from work.

This egress opening is a virtual magnet for leaves and other debris, so I was hoping that once I remove the leaves and other stuff, that there would not be too much else that needed to be removed. Well, I was wrong. Whomever installed this egress window must have added a couple cubic feet of gravel and stones to the bottom of the egress space. In order for the window to be installed, I needed to remove enough gravel and dirt to allow open access to the window sill. A coworker gave me a post digger, so I was able to clear out a lot of the dirt and gravel, as the egress space is too small to effectively use a shovel.

After approximately 30 minutes of digging and removing gravel and dirt, the window sill is now clear of all obstructions so the installation tomorrow should occur without a hitch. Updates to follow on the new window as conditions warrant.

Yep, it was hot dirty manwork tonight!

7 comments:

Big Johnny said...

I miss having a basement....talk to native californians about a cellar, and they just give you a blank stare.

Lisa said...

I'm with John. I miss my basement. We put a daylight window into our basement in our house in Oliver Woods. There was a fourth bedroom down there, but without the window, we couldn't call it a bedroom. Loved the light it added to the basement room.

I did have to rescue a baby bunny who fell into the hole once, though. It was deep.

L.

Cameron Ted said...

I appologize in advance if the photo taked did indeed get down and dirty with this project:

How many people does it take to clean out the window mess?
2. one to do the work and one to hald the camera and tell you how to do it right HA :)

I put in a tree at the in-laws and it took 5 people to to do it. Me to dig and place it and 4 others to tell me how to do it... I have a picture from that day that makes me laugh everytime. Me in a hole and my father-in-law and his brothers standing and watching....

word verification: skiref

Deirdre Honner said...

Well, I am sure not getting in the hole to dig. Someone has to take pictures and someone has to dig. It's pretty simple math with just two of us here. @thedogsamson can't hold a shovel so that doesn't count.

Cameron Ted said...

:) sounds like you need bigger window wells. I have to ask did you all put in the egress yourselves? or was it there or installed? Our basement can't be zoned bedroom until the fire escape window is in. If you did it yourself I was wondering the effort.

Paul's Blog said...

Cameron, the egress window was installed by the previous owners of this home. What we did was replace the old window with a new energy efficient one.

Cameron Ted said...

With the drain that is needed (and I am guessing the drain goes to the sewer) and the amount of foundation cutting that would be needed, it would probably be best left to the professionals.

The new windows looked great.