Locally Owned Foundation Work in Highland Park

What Foundation and Waterproofing Challenges Affect Highland Park?

Highland Park grew up as a streetcar suburb in the late 1880s, and its historic homes carry infrastructure to match their age — including masonry foundations now well over a century into service on Des Moines' demanding ground. As the neighborhood revitalizes, those foundations are often first on the repair list.

A hundred-plus years of the Des Moines Lobe's clay-rich till has taken a toll. The saturated soil presses laterally on these old masonry walls while groundwater from the region's high water table seeps through them, and the combination has left many foundations both moving and wet — walls that have bowed or shifted, and basements that have never had a real barrier against the moisture.

JLB stabilizes and seals them as part of bringing these homes back. We anchor bowed and shifted masonry walls with steel wall anchors to stop the movement, and we install modern interior waterproofing to manage the groundwater the original construction left unaddressed. A revitalized Highland Park home gets a foundation built to carry it another century.

Restoring a streetcar-era home means starting below grade. In Highland Park we anchor the aging masonry and waterproof the basement — turning a century-old foundation from a liability into a stable base for the investment above it.

Restoring a Highland Park home means starting below grade — a century-old masonry wall that's both shifted and stayed wet won't support the investment above it until it's anchored and sealed. We handle the movement and the moisture together, because a stabilized wall that's still taking on groundwater is only half the repair these streetcar-era homes need.