How to Clean Out Window Wells Before Winter

Pull the debris out by hand, scrape down to the gravel, and pour a bucket of water in to see whether the drain still takes it. Do it before the ground freezes. A window well is a hole in the ground against your foundation, so it collects everything the wind moves along that wall, and a packed well holds water against a basement window all winter.

What a window well is supposed to do

A window well is a retaining wall, usually corrugated steel or molded plastic, holding soil back from a window that sits below grade. It is there so a basement room gets daylight and, in a bedroom, so there is a way out in a fire.

The bottom is normally gravel rather than dirt, and on a lot of Twin Cities houses a vertical pipe runs from that gravel down to the drain tile at the footing. The whole design assumes water goes straight down and leaves. Everything that goes wrong with a window well comes from that path getting blocked.

Why they fill up every fall here

Wind does not carry leaves evenly. It pushes them along the side of a house and drops them wherever it slows down, which is exactly what a recess in the ground is. A well on the lee side of a house can be full after one windy week in late October.

Gutters make it worse. If the run above the well is plugged and spills over the front edge, that water lands in the well instead of going to a downspout, carrying shingle grit and leaf litter down with it. Our guide on when to clean gutters in the Twin Cities covers that timing, and what a gutter cleaning should include explains why the downspouts matter as much as the trough.

Oak and maple leaves then mat together into something closer to a lid than a pile. Water sits on top of it instead of draining through, and by spring the bottom layer has broken down into black compost that holds moisture like a sponge.

What a packed well actually costs you

Water standing in a well sits against the bottom of the window frame, which is the one part of a window never designed to be submerged. On older wood frames that means rot starting at the sill. On steel casements it means rust at the corners, and on vinyl it works on the weatherstripping until the seal stops doing anything.

Minnesota adds freezing to it. Saturated debris expands when it freezes and pushes outward on the frame and the well liner, and meltwater on a warm February afternoon refreezes overnight in the same spot. That cycle, not any single event, is what opens up a leak into a basement.

There is a safety side too. A below-grade bedroom window is an exit. A well packed solid with wet leaves and then eighteen inches of snow is not something you climb out of quickly.

How to clean one out

This is a do-it-yourself job for most houses and it takes about fifteen minutes per well.

• Wear gloves. Wet leaf litter in a well is where mice, spiders and the occasional toad end up.
• Lift the debris out by hand into a bucket. Do not blow it around with a leaf blower, which drives grit into the window track and the drain.
• Scrape down until you can see gravel. If you find packed black soil instead, the gravel is buried and the drain under it almost certainly is too.
• Test the drain. Pour in a gallon or two of water. It should disappear within a minute. If it pools and sits there, the drain is plugged or the well never had one.
• Clean the glass and the track last, once the mess is gone, so you are not washing dirt back into a clean well. Our guide on cleaning window tracks and sills covers that part.
• Put the cover back on, or get one. A clear polycarbonate cover keeps leaves and snow out and still lets the light through.

One thing to skip: do not point a pressure washer into a window well. You are aiming high pressure water at a foundation wall and a window seal from two feet away, which is the opposite of what you want.

When the well is not really the problem

If a drain will not take water after you have cleared the well, that is a drainage question, not a cleaning question. The same goes for a well that fills with water every time it rains hard, or a liner pulling away from the wall. Window well drains, drain tile and foundation grading are a drainage or foundation contractor, not something I do, and nobody should sell you a cleaning as a fix for that.

What I can do is the part above it. If the gutters over that wall are spilling, the well keeps refilling no matter how often you empty it, and gutter cleaning starts at $120, backed by the Gleam Guarantee. I work in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the suburbs out to about 25 miles. You can request a free quote online or book a free 10-minute consultation.