Spray Foam Insulation in West Des Moines, IA

Two very different West Des Moines housing stocks

West Des Moines grew west from Valley Junction, the old railroad town along the Raccoon River that is still its historic district. The east side near Valley Junction and along Grand Avenue carries bungalows and two-stories from the early 1900s through the 1950s, with the same balloon framing, shallow attics and open rim joists you find in the older parts of the metro. The Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey puts roughly 12 percent of the city's housing before 1960.

West of I-35, and especially around Jordan Creek and out toward the Dallas County line, the picture flips: large tracts of 1990s, 2000s and 2010s construction, with about 39 percent of the city's roughly 34,000 housing units built since 2000 and a median year built of 1994. Those houses have deeper attic insulation but share a set of predictable weak spots: uninsulated rim joists, bonus rooms over garages, cantilevered floors and knee walls behind finished upper stories.

What we do most in West Des Moines

In the older east side: attic air sealing of wall tops and chases, blown insulation to depth, and closed-cell foam at the rim joist in basements that often have block or early poured walls. In the newer west side: rim joist foam, bonus room floors over garages, and finishing basements with foam on the poured walls instead of fiberglass. The city straddles four counties, so if a permit is involved we confirm which jurisdiction you are in before writing the scope.

Ice dams show up in both stocks for different reasons: shallow insulation in the old houses, and complicated rooflines with leaky knee walls and can lights in the new ones.

Getting started in West Des Moines

Call or use the form. We will ask which part of the city you are in and what the house is doing, then come look at the attic, rim and any crawl space and write a scope you can keep.