Egress Windows in Deerfield Township
Professional local service, clear communication and practical solutions for properties in Deerfield Township.
The couple who called about egress had bought the lake house in the winter, when the place is quiet and the water is hidden under ice, and they did not fully understand what they had until the spring thaw. That is when Barnes Lake showed itself, all 149 acres of it, and with it the reality of lakefront life: the water table sits close, the lower level breathes, and the room they had planned for the year-round grandchildren needed to be a real bedroom. A lake house becoming a family home, and the egress window was the quiet piece of the puzzle nobody had mentioned.
This page is about egress windows in Deerfield Township: what the private lake communities carry in their ground, why the highway crossroads makes this a commuter and retirement town, and the one fact about the township’s water that surprises everyone.
A Township Without a Town
Deerfield Township organized in 1855, and for a brief spell in the 1870s it went by the name Elm Creek, a nod to the creek that runs through its farmland. The township has never had an incorporated village, never had a downtown, never had a main street, and today its population of well over five thousand spreads across farmhouses, ranch homes, and two of the most unusual communities in Lapeer County. The township’s early settlers built their first meeting at the home of Lorenzo Merrill in the spring of 1856, and the farming they started still shapes the place.
The crossroads is the center of gravity now. M-24 crosses the township north and south, M-90 branches east toward North Branch, and the township sits nine miles north of Lapeer and a straight shot up the highway from the county seat. That has made Deerfield a commuter township for decades, families coming from the metro area for the land and the schools, and a retirement township for another generation drawn by the lakes and the quiet. Both groups bring the same need to the same foundation: a lower level being finished into real bedrooms.
The farmhouse stock on the section roads is the classic Lapeer County mix, block and poured foundations, small windows set high, and basements that were built for storage, not sleep. The newer homes along the M-24 and M-90 corridors went in with full basements designed to be finished, and the best of them with egress planned at the pour. Between the two, the township does a steady business in basement bedrooms, and the saw comes out on the old walls more often than the paint.
One habit shows up on the township’s older homes more than it should: a lower level finished in the eighties or nineties with paneling and a hopper window, and passed along as a finished basement without ever being a legal one. If you are buying or inheriting a Deerfield home, ask the egress question before you trust the bedroom count. It is a cheap inspection compared to the alternative, and it is exactly the kind of thing we are good at fixing.
The Lake That Did Not Exist
Here is the Deerfield detail that surprises everyone: Barnes Lake did not exist until 1926. The land had been homesteaded in 1839, and for nearly a century the southwest corner of the township held a series of small ponds and wetlands strung along Crystal Creek. Then a developer dammed the creek below the last of those ponds, flooded the whole valley, and created the lake that is now the township’s heart, 149 acres of water with about five miles of shoreline and a maximum depth of 51 feet.
The manmade lake came with a plotted community. In 1928 the Deerfield Land Corporation laid out the Deerfield Park subdivisions around the new water, marketing cottage lots to families who wanted a lake without driving north for one. In the mid-1930s the lot owners formed the Barnes Lake Club, and they have been running the lake as a private, gated community ever since, with a beach, a boat launch, a clubhouse, and an improvement board that keeps the water treated, stocked, and clean. More than four hundred homes and lots line the shore and the roads around it.
For the egress work, the private lake is the same as any lake, and better than most. The water table sits close to the surface around the whole shoreline, and a window well that does not drain on purpose becomes a window well full of water. But the community’s management means the lake level is stable, the shoreline is maintained, and the lots are big enough to drain a well cleanly. The well drainage is the part of the job we plan with the water table in mind, and it is the part that keeps the escape usable in April.
The lakefront homes split into two groups, and both end up on the job list. The original cottages, small, summer-only, and built for a weekend of fishing, are being converted into year-round homes by the second and third generations, and a converted cottage gets a finished lower level and a real egress window. The newer year-round homes went in with basements designed to be finished, and the egress was either planned at the pour or is being added now. Millers Lake, just west of Barnes Lake across M-24, carries the same pattern on a smaller scale.
The Ground Around the Water
The township’s documented soils are the working Lapeer County mix, sandy loam and clay loam over glacial till, and they drain acceptably in the upland farms and hold water in the low spots around the creeks and the lakes. The farms drain their fields with tile that was laid a century ago, and the lake country drains by elevation and by design. An egress window well is a small piece of that same system, and it works the same way: the gravel, the liner, and the pitched drain do the work.
The township’s homes run on private wells and septic systems in the rural sections, and some of the newer subdivisions have gained utilities as they grew. Either way, the egress well and its drain have to respect the well casing and the septic field clearances set by the Lapeer County Health Department. On the lake lots and the acreage lots there is usually plenty of room to do it cleanly; the planning just has to happen before the digger does.
The walkout is a gift on the lake side of the township, where the grade drops toward the water. A walkout door at grade counts as the egress for the rooms it reaches directly, no well, no ladder, no cover, just a door and a clear path to the yard. If the walkout does not reach every bedroom, each bedroom without the door still needs a proper egress window of its own. The details are on our basement bedroom egress page, and the lake lots make the daylight side easy to find.
For the homes that need the window, the work follows the same steps as everywhere in the county. The wall is cut and the opening reinforced with a steel lintel, the egress window goes in sized to the code, and the well is dug, lined, and drained, with a ladder where the depth calls for it and a cover that opens from the inside. The details are on our foundation cutting and window well installation pages, and the lake adds one requirement: the drainage is checked against the season, not the forecast.
How the Work Goes in Deerfield
Most Deerfield jobs fit into about a day of exterior work. The lakefront wells and the farmhouse lintels add time, and the spring, when the water table is highest, is both the busiest season and the true test of the well. We check the depth to water on the lake jobs before we plan, we pull the permit with Lapeer County, and the finished work is inspected.
The lake communities schedule around their own rhythm, the club rules and the spring runoff, and we plan for both. If your Deerfield home has a lower level waiting for its bedrooms, the planning is free, the permit is quick, and the window will do more for that room than any paint ever will.
Deerfield Township Egress Window FAQ
We are on Barnes Lake. Will the window well fill with water?
Only if the drainage is not built for the water table. The well has to drain even in saturated ground, and we check the depth to water before we plan. Built right, it is a dry escape even in the spring.
Our cottage is being converted to a year-round home. When does egress fit into the remodel?
Early, before the drywall. The opening has to be cut on the bare wall, the sill set for the finished floor, and the well built while the yard is open. On a cottage conversion, that timing saves real money.
Our basement is finished but has no egress. Does that count as a bedroom?
No. A finished lower level without a proper egress window is not a legal bedroom, and it will not pass an inspection or an appraisal. We can add the egress after the fact.
Does a walkout door count as the egress for the whole lower level?
A walkout door counts for the rooms it reaches directly. Bedrooms on the other side of the lower level still need a proper egress window of their own.
My home is an old farmhouse. Can its basement window be made into egress?
Yes. The opening is enlarged, the wall is reinforced with a steel lintel, and a real egress window goes in. It is the most common egress job on the township’s section roads.
How large does the window need to be?
The finished opening must meet the code’s clear width, height, and sill height, checked by Lapeer County. We size the window to the numbers before anything is cut.
What about the well and septic on our lot?
The egress well and its drain have to respect the well and septic clearances set by the Lapeer County Health Department. We check the layout before we dig.
Do we need a permit for egress work?
Yes, the permit comes from Lapeer County, and the finished work is inspected. We handle the permit as part of the job.
The Bottom Line for Deerfield Homeowners
Deerfield Township is a place without a downtown and with a lake that did not exist a century ago, a commuter crossroads and a retirement town and a private lake community all in one. The farmhouses on the section roads and the homes on the water share the same need: a bedroom below grade needs a real escape. Whatever the walls are made of, the rule is the same.
If you are finishing the lower level of a Deerfield home, we will come out, look at the wall and the ground, check the water table if you are on the lake, and lay out the plan before you spend a dollar. Confirm the requirements with the county, and then let us show you what a real egress window looks like in a township where the lake was made by hand and the bedrooms are made the same way.
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