Cutting Egress Windows for Light and Safety

[Music] hi guys and welcome to a special edition of today's test for today's test we are prepping to cut these windows out if you've never heard of an egress window your mind is going to be blown on today's tasks what they do is they take out these old eighteen by thirty shallow windows and we're gonna cut these over and down to a 48 by 48 egress window and we have five of them to install although this task is going to open up the basement it has to start on the outside of the house right out here a lots gonna happen in order to accomplish this we have to eliminate all of these bushes and get to those windows behind there we also have to access these windows in those windows and then there's two more on the other side and by access those windows I mean we're going to dig those windows up to accomplish the digging I have rented this small mini track hoe and somebody in the comments of another video said Joel how has your new truck helped with these tasks well I'll tell you right now this is how it is you cannot take this tractor off their premises without a 3/4 ton or bigger truck or a two and five-sixteenths ball which I have both but even then my truck is still squatting right now that is a very heavy heavy trailer and tractor combination but the alternative is hand digging so if you're debating on the idea of a tractor just think about this it costs three hundred dollars to have it for eight hours I can't physically dig five-window wells in eight hours I could dig those window wells for free on my own labor but my back will be shot and I have all of the room and access to use a tractor so that's what I'm gonna use and I recommend that for yourself if you're gonna have a contractor come to these egress windows I would see if they can do the digging as well because it is back-breaking labor there's a caveat sometimes the windows don't allow you to have access or room for a tractor so the only option is to hand dig it I've done that too and you will feel very accomplished at the end of the task in the video congratulations take pictures show me let me see what you're doing but for today we're gonna use this big guy [Music] all right we've got our tractor in motion and are ready to start digging but there's a few things I want to show you guys that you need to be very aware of a couple of safety items to go over first of all you need to call blue stake before you dig anywhere on your property especially if you're gonna be digging with heavy machinery where you're not gonna know what you're hitting until you've hit it so I called blue stake they told me that my water runs right through here my gas runs right back there and it's not in the way of any of my windows the one thing I have to keep aware of is I have power running above my head right where I'm going to be digging that was a lot of volts coming into this house at this moment and those are live power lines so I do not want to bump those at any cost one because I don't want the injury and two I don't want to pay for the repair when you damage any of these kind of lines whether its water or whether it's gas whether it's power you still have to call and have those repaired and when they come out to repair it like that it's an emergency repair and they charge you a fortune so remember it's free to have blue state come out and check for your water gas and power and hopefully you'll have safe digging the whole time you guys today we are continuing the original task we started of prepping for our egress windows and for today's task we're actually cutting the egress windows in this hydraulic unit you see behind me huge generator huge tank of hydraulic fluid is powering all the saws now for this task I know that I am not capable of doing what I need done for these egress windows but I do know that most of the time you can hire out somebody to come cut these windows and if you're willing to help they kind of cut you a little bit of a deal but if not you need to be present when they come cut this stuff cuz there's little things you could take care of like for instance you can help take care of the water because water is going to get everywhere and since we are able to cut on the inside of the house I've had two vacuum up tons of tons of water how come like the water is coming out when you touch there it that's a great question code so the reason they come with water is to eliminate the dust if you don't talk with dust one the blade will get super super hot so it helps keep the blade cool and two it keeps the dust down we don't have to wear face masks because of the water is absorbing the dust and it's really just putting it on the ground it's kind of a dirty slurry and so that's what you as the homeowner can help clean up because you're not qualified I'm not qualified to cut these windows but whoever you hire is and they will want your help and I have been helping my guy the entire time so yesterday we had to make a series of cuts one on the top one on the bottom and each side and we have five windows with four cuts each that's 20 cuts it took us all day it takes a couple hours to prep which whoever you hired will do all the prep work for that but then it takes a long time to just keep the saw going and moving and water cleanup and hydraulic usage and everything so we were here all day yesterday now we are using a special saw if you look on this corner the big stuff that only gets here and then can only get here it can't connect the two without having a huge over cut so he has a special saw you can put through it's called the surface saw and it'll connect those joints and so it makes a nice clean cut on older projects that I've seen cut like this they have to cut a long way past and so you have these big lines that just kind of if you're gonna cover it all it doesn't really matter but where these are gonna be on the outside of the house we want as clean up lines as possible so now using that different saw we can get perfect corners every time so it looks real clean [Music] all the windows are completely cut this one is barely sitting in here it's actually coming off a little bit and we're and start knocking these guys out this is the ultimate moment of truth and the best part of the whole day [Music] so [Music] okay we are doing a continuation of the egress windows we have gotten cut the cement is out and we are doing the next step the next step is you have to support this concrete now that it's sitting here it's obviously not going to collapse immediately but in the event that some things may be happening or whatnot we have definitely weakened the integrity of this concrete so we have to put something structurally there and especially on this side where the joists are sitting on them they don't have a concrete that isn't quite structurally sound anymore so we are gonna be putting a lentil in and these lentils are steel structure that we pulled to this wall and then it holds it and that is just enough that's three by three by quarter and it'll definitely do the trick for holding that cement and I remember when I used to work at a steel fabrication shop making lentils for everything we made them all the time for all kinds of businesses we were always shipping them out and it's kind of cool to be myself so I'll show you how I make them the garbage and my trip two slits in it because it just works easy so I pick a side and that's the side I'm going to use but any kind of counseling you could definitely use a lot of different methods to cut this I like the 4 inch grinder with the cutting wheel on it it seems will be pretty fast you could use a cutting torch if you have one you could even use a good old fashioned hacksaw you're gonna be in that a while you can't use a sawzall but that just chews through blades and blades are kind of expensive so I think this is the best that can get more out of this I've already cut two then we have to do five so this seems to be doing the trick very well you do need safety glasses because you are gonna have sparks going everywhere you need to make sure that wherever you're shooting sparks it's okay to have sparks going near so back here we're just fine the next cut we need to make is we need to nip a little bit off the angles because because that's a bevel cut in there with a round blade it's obviously I'm going to take a square corner so we got to take it a little bit of that long so just nip your corners off just make sure you nip the same side in same direction I'm gonna put three anchors in this to adhere it to the wall so we need to make sure we flip it over and this is the face that's gonna be sitting against the wall this is the face that goes into the wall so we want to be drilling off in this side so you make sure you're paying attention to which direction you're putting that I'm marking mine at two inches in and engage the corner down and we'll make all three of those and this one's in the middle I'm just doing dead center but the same dimensions inch to quarter down and I am using a special pencil this is I think they probably China marker and you can mark on like tile and stuff they work really good for that but with steel I feel like pencils kind of get lost the markings ain't lost on steel so I like something color so like I talked about in my tool belt review video I carry this one always so I have it and we use it next we're ready to start drilling and I recommend using some sort of a drilling fluid cutting fluid it'll just help keep the drill bit cooler longer I've already broken a bit so I know I was being a little too aggressive so take your time start with something small like maybe 3/16 drill bit or 1/8 drill bit to drill a pilot hole and then we can use step drills from there on out but put a little bit of cutting oil on your center spot and go for it I do when I'm cutting metal I keep it on a slower speed twos a lot faster but higher rpms and metal don't really mix very well so I keep it on the slower speed higher torque and you know you're cutting well when you start to see the ribbons come off not just chunks [Music] since the screws we're putting in our five sixteenths we want to get the whole to at least three-eighths inch and I'm using this step-down drill these are probably one of the best tools that I've ever used when it comes to drilling they are very expensive but they last a long time and they work really really well and it allows you to get to multiple dimensions on one drill bit one caveat though is they're not the best in creating a pie the hole so I don't like to punch through on them but I do like to finish off with these drill bits a little more oil and I can put a little bit on the drill bit because they do get hot [Music] just like that we're done with all of our holes drilled we could set our lentil and you just want to Center it off both sides I've centered it to my gap on both sides and I'm ready to start drilling my concrete I do recommend a concrete drill for this it makes the life a lot easier you can get tapcon screws like I've talked about before and they do come with a bit you can use an irregular drill that you are going to be working at this a long time so if you have access to a concrete drill or a neighbor you've got one grab it and use it you'll appreciate it later on I like to start with the middle bolt and I drill this one and anchor it before I drill these two because that way it moves shift as I'm drilling the other ones because sometimes it'll make this metal bounce around a little bit push that against there solid and then a trip it's good now we'll drill the other two sides and anchor those as well and our lintel is in place and now we're ready to frame over top of it and call it good that this will be structurally sound and I'm happy with it one thing to make note is if you've had to make the cuts for your regrets window on the outside just because the inside of your house is already finished or whatnot and you had to put a lentil on the outside you do need to prime it first because outside on the weather it will give wet on it it will get condensation and it will corrode very quickly on the inside you should be okay you guys that is all of the work that you have to do for the prep of the egress window that's all we're gonna cover in this video today when I install the windows I will show you how to do that be watching out for that window it is coming up shortly thank you for watching if you guys want to check out any of the tools I used I will link them in the description down below and if you guys liked the video give it a thumbs up and we'll see you tomorrow for this test bow although [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Todays Task

Views: 113,261

Keywords: todays task, todaystask, mytodaystask, task, diy, do it yourself, handyman, diy house repair, house repair, how to house repair, how to, repair, fix, build, construct, Joel hoellein, hoellein, egress windows, egress safety, cutting concrete, cutting windows, cutting egress windows, basement windows, cutting basement windows, Cutting Egress Windows for Light and Safety, fire escape

Id: PcObBox_aOw

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020