Roof help across Des Moines and Polk County

How the roofs change across the metro

The Des Moines metro is really three housing eras laid side by side, and each era fails in its own way.

The older city and the first suburbs. Most houses inside Des Moines went up between the 1910s and the 1950s. Think brick bungalows in Beaverdale, foursquares near Drake, and plain ranches on the east side. Valley Junction in West Des Moines is older still, with railroad-era homes from the 1890s on. On these streets expect steep pitches, aging brick chimneys, cramped attics with little airflow, plank decking, and in many cases a second layer of shingles. A tear-off here often turns up surprises under the old roof.

The postwar ranches under big trees. Along Ashworth Road, in Clive near the Greenbelt trail, and on Urbandale streets off Douglas and Meredith, the houses are mostly 1950s to 1990s ranches and split-levels. Low slopes, wide overhangs and mature maples and oaks are the pattern. That means leaf-packed valleys and gutters, branches on the roof after a windstorm, and ice building at the eaves of the low-pitched sections.

The new subdivisions on open ground. Ankeny, Waukee, Grimes, Johnston and the area west of Jordan Creek Parkway added most of their roofs after 2000. With no shade and no windbreak, these roofs meet hail and straight-line wind first. Many were put on quickly during the building boom, and the earliest of them are now reaching the end of their first set of shingles.

Weather that hits everyone

Hail can fall anywhere in the metro from March through August, and the 2020 derecho showed how one storm can damage whole neighborhoods in an afternoon. Winters bring about 35 inches of snow and long stretches of freeze-thaw. Wind and hail are the bigger threat on the treeless northern and western edges. Ice dams and limb damage show up more on the older, shaded streets.

Which guide to read first

• Stain on a ceiling near an outside wall in late winter: the ice dam repair guide.
• Shingles in the yard or dents on the gutters after a storm: the storm damage and insurance claim guide.
• A drip at a chimney, pipe or valley on a roof with years left: the Des Moines roof repair guide.
• A roof near twenty years old with problems on every slope: the replacement guide, then the price ranges by house type.

For the two suburbs with their own pages, the West Des Moines roofing guide covers Valley Junction, Glen Oaks and the Jordan Creek area, and the Ankeny roof repair guide covers Prairie Trail, Briarwood and Uptown.

What changes from one city to the next

Every city in the metro runs its own building department. West Des Moines, Ankeny and Clive each handle roofing permits inside their limits, and West Des Moines alone spreads across four counties. Permit steps, inspections and fees can differ, so check with the city where the house sits before work starts, and confirm the quote says who pulls the permit.

Subdivision covenants are the other local difference. Many neighborhoods built after the mid-1990s, Prairie Trail among them, control shingle colors and sometimes materials. Get HOA approval before anything is ordered.

Out past the suburbs, toward Norwalk, Cumming and Bondurant, steel roofs on acreages are common. Ask whether a contractor works that far out and whether the drive changes the price.

What's the same everywhere in Polk County

The guides on this site — roof repair, roof replacement, storm damage & claims, ice dam repair, roof inspection — apply across Des Moines and every town listed above. Building permits, inspection rules and fees are set by each city, so a job in a suburb can follow slightly different paperwork than one inside Des Moines limits; the area guides note the known differences.

How estimate requests work

Calls and estimate requests from this site go to an independent local contractor partner who quotes and performs the work. You get a written quote before anything starts, and you are never obligated to hire. If you are outside the areas listed, call anyway and ask — the answer is quick.