Blog · Kitchener
Why Your Kitchener Window Well Fills with Water, and What an Egress Window Well Needs
When water comes in at the bottom of a basement window, the wall is usually fine. The problem is the steel well outside it, which has turned into a bucket with nowhere to drain.
Last updated September 25, 2026 · Reviewed by the Kitchener Basement Waterproofing team
Every basement window below grade sits in a window well: a curved steel or plastic liner fastened to the foundation that holds the soil back from the glass. The well catches rain, snowmelt and runoff from the lawn. If that water has a path down to the drainage around the footing, the well stays empty. If it does not, the well fills until the water reaches the bottom of the window frame and pours in over the sill or through the gap between the frame and the concrete.
How a window well is supposed to drain
A properly built well has a drain at the bottom, usually a vertical perforated pipe that runs from the floor of the well down to the weeping tile at the footing, with clear gravel in the bottom of the well around it. Water that falls into the well soaks through the gravel, into the pipe and away through the foundation drainage to the sump or storm connection.
In Kitchener, three things commonly break that path:
- No drain at all. Many wells in the 1960s to 80s subdivisions of Forest Heights, Stanley Park and Country Hills were set in place with native soil in the bottom and nothing connecting them to the tile. Kitchener clay does not let water through quickly, so the well holds it.
- A drain that has silted up. Leaves, mulch and fine soil wash in every season. After enough years the gravel is a layer of mud and the drain pipe is plugged.
- Weeping tile that no longer works. Even a clean well drain is useless if the tile it connects to is crushed, full of silt or has roots through it, which is common in older clay tile.
Grading makes all of this worse. If the lawn or a flower bed slopes toward the well, or a downspout lets out next to it, the well collects far more water than it was designed for. In newer areas such as Doon South and Huron Park, the problem is often a well installed without a drain on a lot where the grading has settled toward the house.
What a window well repair involves
- Dig out the well down to the footing, or as far as needed to reach the drain or tile.
- Check the weeping tile at that point with a camera or by exposing it. If it is blocked, the well repair includes clearing or replacing that section; see weeping tile replacement.
- Install a drain pipe from the well floor to the tile, with a cap or grate to keep debris out.
- Backfill the bottom of the well with clear gravel instead of soil.
- Reset or replace the liner so it is sealed against the foundation and stands a few inches above the surrounding soil.
- Regrade around the well so the lawn sheds water away from it, and move any downspout that lets out nearby.
- Add a cover if the well is under a roof edge without a gutter, or catches blowing leaves.
Where the wall below the window is also leaking, or the tile is failing along the whole side of the house, the window well becomes part of a larger job. See window well drainage for the stand-alone repair.
Egress windows: when a bigger well is required
A lot of Kitchener basements are being finished into bedrooms or turned into separate units, and that brings the Ontario Building Code into the window well. Article 9.9.10.1 requires a bedroom to have a window or door that can be used as an exit. The window must provide an unobstructed opening of at least 0.35 m², with no dimension less than 380 mm. Where that window opens into a window well, the code requires a clearance of at least 550 mm in front of the window.
That clearance is the part homeowners often miss. A standard shallow well in front of an old basement hopper window is nowhere near 550 mm deep from the wall. An egress well is larger, sits lower and needs more drainage capacity, because it collects more water and the window it protects is larger.
The City of Kitchener lists adding a bedroom to the basement, and installing a new window or increasing the width of an existing opening, among the work that needs a building permit. Cutting a foundation wall for a larger window is structural, so the permit and the drawings come first, and the well drain is planned as part of the same job rather than added later.
Covers, ladders and winter
- Covers. A clear cover keeps out rain and leaves, but on an egress well it must not block the way out. A heavy grate bolted down defeats the purpose of the window, so ask the permit designer what cover suits the well.
- Ladders or steps. A deep egress well needs a way to climb out. Many liners come with built-in steps.
- Snow. Wells fill with drifted snow, which then melts into them all at once in March. Clearing a well before a thaw is cheap insurance.
Is it the well or the wall?
Water that appears at the bottom corners of the window frame after rain, with a wet well outside, is the well. Water that appears lower on the wall, at a crack or at the floor joint, even with a dry well, is coming through the foundation, and the fix is different. The waterproofing contractor checks both on the first visit. For how window well and drainage work is priced, see the Kitchener basement waterproofing cost guide, or book a visit to have the well looked at.