Installing a window well

I am planning out the installation of a window well for a set of glass block basement windows.

I have com up with a few questions:

1) Metal or plastic well?

2) What sort of fastener should i use to attach it to the wall (poured concrete foundation walls)? Seems like a Tapcon with predrilled holes win out but are there other options i am unaware of?

Thanks for your help

All I know is they can really suck in a meter reader !

 You almost don’t need to attach it at all. The dirt will hold it in place. 

Make sure the ground level inside the window well is several inches below the window, and that there are several inches of gravel in it. You need the water to absorb into the ground rather than leaking around the window.

I’d go plastic. They don’t rust. 

Nobody screws them in, the ground holds them. 

Man alive.  

You google it on the internet and they make you think that if its not screwed in and caulked and this and that that its installed wrong and the whole house will fall in on it self and flood due to improper install.

Thanks for the input.

Does the answer change if a sidewalk will be poured around the window well?

In reply to CarKid1989 :

Yes.

Then the concrete holds the window well instead of the dirt! 

The internet is stupid.

The thing has no bottom.  Why would caulking it matter?  In fact, attaching it could make it worse- you are gonna punch holes into the masonry wall, which become potential leak points.

What's important is the water...

A window well can catch a LOT of water.  It is right next to the house, and that means it is under the eave line.  So water coming off the roof can fill it up quickly.

Gutters may not always help.  They can clog, and water pour over the edge.

So, if you're gonna install something designed to catch water directly next to your house, you need to make sure you are getting rid of the water.  Minimum 4" of stone in the bottom, and 4" from the top of the stone to the window sill.

If I was setting it in concrete, I would do more.  I would install a French drain or a drain pipe from the stone base to direct water away from the house when the window well fills up.  I'd probably put #57 gravel about a foot thick in the well, with a trench full of stone about a foot wide extending 6' away from the window well, or at least out from under the concrete.  I'd make the bottom of the trench slope away from the well.  

Instead of the French drain, a perforated pipe that drained to free air would be great- if it ever clogged, it could be cleaned out.

Here is what you need to know...The window well WILL fill up with water.  The water WILL leave the window well, and it WILL take the easiest path.  If the easiest path is INTO the house, that's where it WILL go.

I have no idea what the Internet would say about this- don't care! 

Hey guys, checking back in.

Thank you for the short answers and the longer explained answers.  I appreciate the willingness to take the time to help me out

I got nothing on installing a window well, but I do have a funny story about one.  I get a call to a large record store back about 20 years ago.  When I get there the manager says they have a leak and they have been getting notifications from the water dept for 9 months saying they are using excessive water.  He takes me to the center of the store and pushes a rack of cds a few feet and reveals a trap door.  He lifts the door and almost to the top of the basement is cold crystal clear water.  Turned out to be just about 10 feet deep.  Apparently the building had two basements, and nobody that worked at the business knew of the other basement where the water meter was located.  Fire dept came out and pumped the basement out.  Took almost 3 hours until it was only waste deep. Turned out  a bleed screw cap was missing on the house side shutoff, and a pencil lead sized stream of water was constantly shooting out.  Basement filled to the point where there was a missing pane of glass in a window.  Water leaked into a window well that had a drain tied into city storm sewer.  Window well had one of those plastic covers over it and nobody knew it was constantly draining water from the basement flooding.  There was so much water being pumped out, they had to shut down one lane of Rte 9 in Newton Ma.  

We put in two window wells a couple of years ago and I have one more to install but at my house the easy answer for drainage is to keep digging and tie into the drain tile around the house that the sump pump takes care of. If you are already down to where you need to be below egress window height you are generally almost all the way down.

a sloped or bubble shaped window well cover will probably help keep a lot of rain water out of the well.

We are thinking of putting in an Egress Window inour basement this summer, and I want to keep a cover on it to keep it from filling in with snow.