Drake Neighborhood's Homes Are Talking — We Listen

What Foundation and Waterproofing Challenges Affect Drake Neighborhood?

Severely bowed basement walls turn up again and again in the Drake Neighborhood, and the reason is as much about upkeep as about soil. This large, diverse district around Drake University is dense with historic housing — much of it long-term rental or owner stock where foundation maintenance has been deferred for decades.

Neglect gives the ground the upper hand. The clay-rich till here swells against a block wall whenever it's wet, and with no one clearing drains or catching cracks early, that pressure has pushed many walls into serious inward bows. Add Des Moines' high water table seeping through unsealed basements, and the damage across these homes is often structural and advanced by the time anyone addresses it.

JLB brings these foundations back with comprehensive reinforcement. We anchor and brace badly bowed walls — steel wall anchors, and I-beam bracing where the movement is severe — to arrest and where possible reverse the bow, then install updated interior waterproofing to manage the groundwater the old basements never controlled. Structure first, then a dry, sealed space.

A Drake-area home that's gone years without foundation attention needs more than a patch — it needs the wall reinforced and the water finally taken in hand. We do both, restoring density-worn historic houses to something sound and dry.

On a Drake-area home that's gone years without attention, the wall is often badly bowed before anyone acts. We give owners a straight read on whether it can still be anchored or needs bracing, because catching a block wall before it passes the point of straightening is the difference between reinforcing it and rebuilding it.