Egress Window Installation in Lake Oswego, OR
A 30-inch Douglas fir standing 12 feet from a Lake Oswego basement wall has, under the city's tree code, a protection zone with a 30-foot radius. The window well for the bedroom behind that wall is about the size of a bathtub, and it is within 18 feet of the zone. On a Lake Oswego egress window, that arithmetic is worked out before the foundation is, because the city will not issue the building permit until it has inspected the tree protection on the ground.
What Lake Oswego adds to the job
The main egress window page describes the cut, the well, the drain, and the window, and that part is the same on any lot. What Lake Oswego adds is four things that happen before the permit exists:
A tree protection inspection
The city's ADU guide, which applies the same rule to any building permit, says "the City will need to inspect and approve tree protection and erosion control before you can receive your ADU building permit," and the site plan must show "the location and size of all trees located on the property." Inspections are Monday through Friday, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., requested through code enforcement, with 4-foot metal fencing on steel posts already standing at the edge of each zone.
A removal application, if a tree has to go
Removal of any tree 6 inches or more in diameter needs a permit; a healthy tree over 15 inches goes through a Type II application with a 14-day public comment period and a 7-day appeal window, and the city says to file it with the building permit.
A hillside check
On any parcel mapped as a slide area or slide hazard, or with undisturbed slopes over 12 percent, the city's hillside protection section applies to "ministerial construction of structures," which is what an ordinary building permit is, on lots where its rules have not already been applied, and a cut into a steep lot can require a geotechnical engineer's certification.
An erosion control permit, on some lots
Required for any construction "within 50 feet of a water body," which on the lake, its canals and the creeks reaches a lot of addresses, and for disturbance over 500 square feet, which a single well is not.
The city states that "most plans are reviewed within four weeks from application," and a permit application expires 180 days after it is filed, so the four weeks fall within a window that also includes any tree permit's comment and appeal periods. A tree question that surfaces at submittal, when it could have surfaced at the estimate, is added to all of that.
The radius arithmetic
The zone is the greater of the dripline or "one-ft. protection radius per inch of trunk DBH," trunk diameter at breast height, and inside it the code bars storing materials, parking, chemicals and any "excavate, trench, grade, root prune or other activity." So the estimate visit on a Lake Oswego basement starts at the trees. Each one near the proposed well is measured, its radius is drawn on the site plan, and the well is placed outside the circles where the bedroom allows. Where it does not, the code leaves two paths: a well on a different wall of the same room, or a Type II removal application filed alongside the permit. Whether the city will accept any work inside a zone is decided on the tree protection application, and VResh draws the site plan so that question is answered before the permit, well ahead of the morning the excavator is parked on your driveway.
Three by six
Lake Oswego's zoning definitions specify a size for a window well, which is unusual enough that most contractors have never read the line. In the rule for measuring building height, "the ground surface of a window well shall be deemed to be the same as the adjacent ground surface when the dimensions of the window well do not exceed three ft. by six ft. and the cumulative width of the window well(s) on a building facade does not exceed 40%." A well larger than 3 by 6 feet, or a row of wells across most of a wall, lowers the point from which the city measures the house, and on a steep lot near the height limit a bedroom window can become a height question. The code minimum, 36 inches out and 9 square feet, fits inside 3 by 6 with room to spare, and VResh sizes Lake Oswego wells to stay under that line unless a larger well is wanted and the height has been checked.
The lake side, and the boulders
Two more Lake Oswego conditions decide how a well is dug. The first is water. The city's comprehensive plan says "the perimeter of the Lake is in the 100-year floodplain regulated by FEMA," and the city's own Flood Management Area is stricter than the federal map by a foot: inside it, the lowest floor "including basement" has to sit at or above the city's design flood elevation, "one foot above either the base flood elevation or the 1996 Flood Inundation Areas ... whichever is higher," and any alteration of a structure in the area needs a certified elevation certificate with the permit. A basement bedroom on a lakefront or canal lot is measured against that line before the well is drawn, and where the basement floor is below it the answer comes from the city.
The second is what is in the ground. The Oswego Lake Watershed Council's geology page says homeowners, contractors and geologists alike know about "the large, hard boulders left by the floods in Old Town, Lakewood, Bryant, Rosewood and Blue Heron neighborhoods." Those are Missoula-flood boulders, and a window well excavation in those neighborhoods can meet one before it is at depth. Elsewhere, the city sits on basalt and the Boring lava of Mount Sylvania and Cooks Butte, where a well on a hillside lot may be a rock cut. The code is the same either way; the day is not, and the estimate visit looks at the neighbors' retaining walls and the lot's cut banks for a preview.
Palisades, and the older cores
About 46 percent of Lake Oswego's 18,000 homes were built before 1980, and the 1970s and 1980s together are 45 percent of the stock: the hillside ranches and daylight basements of neighborhoods like Palisades. On a daylight basement, one wall is already at grade, and the egress window goes in a framed wall with no well at all; the tree code still governs the excavator's path to it. On the older cores, First Addition and Old Town, the basement is usually a full one and the well is the job. Most of that pre-1980 stock predates 1978 as well, which puts the cut itself under the lead-safe rules on much of the older hillside housing.
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Egress window questions from Lake Oswego, OR
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Measure the tree before the wall
If you are pricing an egress window in Lake Oswego, the first measurement is a trunk. Book a visit, and it gets taken. Call or text (503) 272-6436.