Bedroom in the basement, anybody know the codes? (Illinois)

[Jim B.]

I'm about to go under contract for a home in the West Chicago Burbs and want to potentially add a bedroom to the unfinished basement, but I'm worried I may (probably) have to add an egress window in order for it to be legal, especially for a rental.

Does anybody have any input on this?  I know it varies a lot by state and even county or city, but wanted to know if anybody had experience, specifically in the Chicago area.  

Also, what would you estimate something like that would cost?  I'm thinking at least a couple thousand...

[Bill Coleman]

Experience only in CO. In order to advertise it as a "conforming bedroom" then it has to have an egress window. As I understand it, you could advertise the house as having a non-conforming bedroom (but you need a closet of a certain size to be a bedroom) However, I learned that the egress window size that my screw up contractor selected was about 3 times as large as it had to be. Do yourself a favor and look up the building code for yourself and then you can challenge the contractor as to why he/she is using a bigger window than necessary. It could have saved me a thousand dollars per window had I looked into the code myself. If you are renting to Section 8, there may be additional rules about the egress window type and size. Also, if you need to cap the window well for safety, make sure you can still open the window after you put the cap on (another great contractor screw up).