Water standing in your window well: why it happens in Sioux Falls and what we charge to fix it

When a window well holds water, we almost never end up replacing the window. Some water reaching the bottom of a well is expected. The trouble is water that stays, and in this city that usually means the gravel under the well no longer drains: fine clay from the surrounding glacial till has worked its way down into the stone and sealed it. Our price to rebuild the drainage under a sound well is $300 to $1,000. When the well itself is shot and comes out too, the job runs $1,000 to $3,000.

Rain water or melt water? Start there

The single most useful thing you can tell us is when the well fills. It splits the problem in two.

It fills in storms and empties by the next day. Water is getting in from above faster than the bed can take it. Look at what is sending it there: a downspout dumping near the well, soil or mulch sloped back toward the house, or a walk or patio that drains in the wrong direction. The ground beside the well should drop about an inch for every foot you move away from the wall, for at least six feet. Moving a downspout so it lets out well clear of the well costs next to nothing and is worth doing before you call anyone. A fitted cover handles the rest.

It fills during the thaw and stays full for weeks. That water is moving through the soil, not falling into the well. Pull back the decorative rock at the bottom and push a trowel down a few inches. If it keeps finding loose stone, the bed still has some life and is simply overwhelmed. If you hit silt or sticky clay right under the top layer, the bed has failed, and caulk, sealant and covers will not change anything.

How we match the symptom to the fix

When it floods	What it usually tells us	What we do	Typical cost
Storms only, drains overnight	Water is coming in from the roof or yard above	Fitted cover, reroute the downspout, fix the grade	$150 to $600 for the cover
Every spring thaw, holds for weeks	Gravel bed clogged, nowhere for water to go	Dig out and rebuild the drainage	$300 to $1,000
Floods, and the steel is rusted where it meets the soil	Well and bed have both reached the end	New well with new drainage beneath it	$1,000 to $3,000
Stains or wet wood on the inside of the window	Water has been standing against the window seal	Drainage first, then a new basement window	$400 to $1,100 per window
Started after a new patio or landscaping project	Grade changed, or the drain tile got crushed	On-site look, then usually a drainage rebuild	$300 to $1,000
Well was dug down into rock	Stone underneath gives the water no exit	Engineered outlet, sized after we see it	Quoted on site

These ranges are the same ones on our pricing page.

What makes it worse here

Our ground does not drain well to begin with. Glacial till carries a lot of clay, so even a fresh gravel bed slowly collects fines from the soil around it. Winter adds to that. Footings in Sioux Falls go down to a 42-inch frost depth, and the city averages about 45.3 inches of snow a year, so a lot of meltwater shows up while the deeper soil is still frozen. It runs along the frozen layer toward the softer fill against the house, and the well collects it.

Then there is the Sioux Quartzite. Parts of the east metro, and the area north toward Dell Rapids, have it close to the surface. When a well ends up sitting in a pocket cut into that rock, more gravel will never help, because the water has no soil to soak into. Those wells need a real outlet.

None of this means your house was built badly. A corrugated steel well set on native clay in the 1990s tends to behave exactly like this once it has been through a couple of decades of winters.

Rebuild the drainage, or replace the whole well?

We will tell you if a drainage rebuild would waste your money. If the steel has rusted through at the soil line, if the anchors have let go and the well has leaned away from the wall, or if dirt is spilling in behind it, we would have to pull the well out to reach the bed anyway. At that point a replacement well at $1,000 to $3,000 makes more sense: a well sized to code, a ladder bolted in when the depth calls for one, and new stone underneath. When the body of the well is still good and only the surface is rusting, a liner is the smaller fix, and we will price it when we come out.

Standing water finds its way inside

A well holding a foot of water keeps steady pressure on the window frame and on the joint against the foundation. It usually goes the same way: damp corners first, then a musty smell, then stains on the sill, and finally wet drywall and carpet in a finished basement. Water and soil gas move through the soil the same way, and Minnehaha and Lincoln counties are both in EPA radon Zone 1, so we like to deal with the water before anything gets finished over it.

Getting a quote from us

Send two photos: one looking straight down into the well, and one from a few steps back that shows the slope and the nearest downspout. Tell us whether the well fills in rain, during the thaw, or in both, and roughly when the house was built. With that, we can usually tell you on the phone whether it needs a cover, a drainage rebuild or a new well. Coming out to measure is free, and the quote is a flat price. Our crew does this work in Sioux Falls, Brandon, Harrisburg, Tea and Dell Rapids.

Frequently Asked Questions

My well only floods in March and April. Why then?

Snowmelt arrives while the ground below it is still frozen. The water cannot sink straight down, so it moves sideways until it reaches the loose fill against your foundation, and the well is the lowest pocket in that fill. If the gravel underneath has clogged with fine soil over the years, the water just sits. That is a drainage job, and the window itself is usually fine.

How much will the repair cost me?

On a well that is still solid, we rebuild the drainage for $300 to $1,000: dig it out, put down fresh gravel, and connect to the footing drain if the house has one. A rusted or undersized well gets replaced along with the drainage for $1,000 to $3,000. A fitted cover on its own is $150 to $600.

Would a cover fix it by itself?

Only when rain is the sole source. If the well stays dry through the thaw and fills only during storms, a fitted cover usually ends it. If it fills as snow melts, the water is coming through the soil from the side and below, and a lid on top does nothing for that.

Is a little water in the well really a problem?

Water that drains within a day is normal. Water that stands for days is pressing on the window frame and on the seam where the well meets the foundation, and neither was built to sit submerged. Plenty of the leaking basement windows we get called about began as a well that held water for a few years.