I have a walk out basement with two small windows near the ceiling. these windows are about 2 feet wide and maybe 1 foot tall. I’d like to take out this window and put in a more standard size, to get more light into the basement, say 2 wide (no wider than the original window in there) and 3 feet tall. The wall is concrete block. Does anyone know if I can simply take the old window out, cut the block the size I want and install the new window? My concern is about some kind of header above the existing window. I would like to think that the header will accommodate the window below it, regardless of how tall the window is. Is this correct?
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As long as you do not disturb the supporting portion of the wall under the existing header you should be able to increase the height of the window without a problem. Just be careful when you are cutting the blocks that you do not break out the sides and leave the header unsupported.
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For $50 I rented a circular saw built for the purpose of cutting concrete or brick and it took me maybe twenty effortless minutes to slice a wider doorway opening through our front brick wall. While it doesn’t apply to your situation, it cost me another $100 to have a welder extend the supporting steel lintel (header). I’ve seen brick/concrete-cutting done several other ways, but all involved more work and/or money, and none resulted in the fine finish the saw gave me.
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My follow up question is this… It appears that the floor joists are sitting on a 2xsomething, and the 2xsomething is immediately above the window. Is this 2xsomething considered my header? there is no additional 2xanything above the window. And this 2xsomething continues maybe 4 or 5 feet beyond the window on the right side, maybe only 6 inches on the left side.