Egress Windows in Arcadia Township
Professional local service, clear communication and practical solutions for properties in Arcadia Township.
The decision that brings most homeowners in Arcadia Township to the egress question sounds like this: we have the room, we have the plan, and we are ready to spend the money, but we want to do it in the right order. It is a planning decision, not a panic one, and it is exactly the right way to approach a basement remodel. The rooms are going to be built, the beds are going to go down, and the one piece that has to be in the plan from the beginning is the window that lets a person get out.
This page is about egress windows in Arcadia Township: what the township’s railroad towns left behind, how the lakes that gave the old settlements their names still shape the ground, and the one detail about living on the edge of the county that changes how the work gets planned.
The Township of the Lost Villages
Arcadia organized in the fall of 1856 and settled early, and its story is written in the names of places that are barely places anymore. The township’s first settler, Thomas Haskell, came in 1839 and kept a hotel for the travelers passing through the wilderness. The communities that followed were railroad towns, and they lived and died with the trains that built them.
Kings Mill grew up around the grist mill and sawmill of Harvey King, with a post office that opened in 1883 and a station on the Pontiac, Oxford and Port Austin Railroad, later part of the Grand Trunk Western line. Lum was founded in 1884, named by a resident who had served under a Colonel Lum in the Civil War, and it grew into a busy village with a bank, a creamery, a hotel, a pickle plant, a grain elevator, and a depot on the rail line. In 1909 the Lum depot suffered an explosion that became part of the village’s legend, and in the decades that followed, the trains slowed and the towns shrank. Today both are quiet corners of the township, with a few storefronts still standing where the tracks used to run.
That railroad history is why the township’s housing stock is what it is. The homes here are farmhouses and village houses built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, on block and fieldstone foundations, with basements that were made for storage, not sleep. When those lower levels become bedrooms, the old window has to be cut out and replaced with a real egress window, the opening enlarged, the wall reinforced with a steel lintel, and the well dug to match. It is the same story across the township, and it is the reason the saw comes out more often than the paint.
One habit shows up on the township’s older homes, and it is worth a warning: a lower level finished years ago with paneling and a hopper window, passed along as a finished basement without ever being a legal one. If you are buying or inheriting an Arcadia home, check the egress 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 Lakes That Named the Towns
Arcadia has no big water, but it has a scatter of small lakes and ponds, and they carry the township’s history in their names. Five Lakes, on the boundary where Arcadia meets Mayfield, was settled in 1855 and named for the chain of water around it, and the lumber crews who worked its sawmills gave the place its start. The lake country also gave the township its quieter modern identity, a ring of homes and cottages on the small lakes, with a good share of them being finished for year-round living.
The lakefront homes are where the egress work meets the water table, and it is the part of the job that gets the most attention. A window well on a lake lot has to drain even when the ground is saturated, the drain has to carry the water away from the foundation, and the well has to stay dry enough to be a real escape route, not a collection basin. We check the depth to water before we plan the well, and we build the drainage to the season, not to the forecast. The details are on our basement waterproofing around egress windows page.
Off the lakes, the township’s ground is the classic Lapeer County till, sandy loam and clay loam over the glacial plain, with the low spots rising in the spring. The water table away from the water is more forgiving, and a window well on that ground is a straightforward piece of engineering: gravel, a liner, and a drain pitched to daylight. The township’s big lots give the well room, the drain room, and the drain room to pitch away from the well and the septic field.
The township’s homes run on private wells and septic systems, and 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 big lots there is usually plenty of room to do it cleanly; the planning just has to happen before the digger does. The details on our window well installation page walk through how the well is built and drained.
The Edge of the County
The Arcadia detail that shapes the planning is the township’s position. It sits in the eastern tier of Lapeer County, with Imlay Township and the village of Imlay City on its east side, and the county line is not far from its eastern edge. That means the first question on any Arcadia job is the same as the first question everywhere in the county: which office issues this permit? We check the map before we plan, pull the permit from the right office, and build to the edition that office enforces.
The eastern edge also changes the commute math for the township’s residents, and that shapes the housing. Homes here are within a reach of the village of Imlay City to the east and Lapeer to the west, and the roads across the township carry a steady flow of working families. Those families are finishing basements for the same reason as everywhere else: the lower level becomes the family room, the guest room, and the bedrooms the house never had, and every one of them needs a real escape window.
The newer homes on the township’s roads went in with full basements designed to be finished, and the best of them with egress planned at the pour, window wells set and drains run before the grade was backfilled. The homes that were not planned that way are where we do the retrofit, and the jobs follow the same careful sequence as everywhere: the wall is cut, the opening is reinforced, 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 walkout is the gift of the newer acreage lots, where the grade slopes to the back fields. 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.
How the Work Goes in Arcadia
The job on an Arcadia home is a half-day to a full day of exterior work. The wall is cut and the opening reinforced, 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. On the farmhouse walls the planning time goes into the lintel and the sill; on the lakeside homes it goes into the water table check and the drain run.
The permits come from Lapeer County, the work is inspected, and the seasons set the calendar. Spring brings the highest water and the fullest schedule, and fall is the sweet spot for getting the well dug before the ground freezes. If your Arcadia 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.
Arcadia Township Egress Window FAQ
My home is an older farmhouse or village home. 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 in the township.
We are near one of the small lakes. Will the well stay dry?
The well stays dry when the drain is built for the water table. We check the depth to water before we plan, and the drainage does the work through the wettest season.
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.
We are near the Imlay line. Which office issues our permit?
It depends on which side of the line your lot sits. We check your address against the township and county boundaries before we plan, and we pull the permit from the office that covers you.
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.
Our lower level is already finished. Can you add egress through the drywall?
Yes, but the finished wall has to come away around the opening so the cut, the lintel, and the window sill can be done correctly. It is a little more work and a little more repair, and it is worth doing right.
The Bottom Line for Arcadia Homeowners
Arcadia Township is a place of small lakes and lost villages, of Kings Mill and Lum and the Five Lakes country, of farmhouses and railroad houses and cottages being finished for year-round living. Its homes are being converted into real homes now, and every 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 an Arcadia home, we will come out, look at the wall and the ground, check the water table if you are near the lakes, 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 old towns went quiet and the homes took over the story.
Ready to Schedule Service?
Contact us now to discuss your project, review the next steps and schedule service.