Norwalk grew faster than almost anywhere else in this metro, and most of its streets are young enough that nobody has a decorating habit yet. On a street like that, the first good roofline sets the tone for everybody.
This is one of the best fits for what we do of any city we serve. It is the combination that does it: 82.5 percent of homes are owner-occupied, 73.3 percent are standalone houses with their own roof, and the town has both an older core and streets of brand new subdivisions.
population growth since 2000. The 2020 count was 12,799 and the 2025 estimate is about 15,004. Most of that arrived as brand new streets.
City of Norwalk ↗owner-occupied, one of the highest shares of any city we cover. West Des Moines sits at 57.4 percent. In Norwalk, the person deciding about lights usually owns the roof.
ACS 2020 to 2024, table B25003 ↗of housing is detached single-family. Waukee is 55.9 percent and Ankeny 58.2 percent, because their growth came with a lot of townhomes. Norwalk's came as houses.
ACS 2020 to 2024, table B25024 ↗There is a lazy version of this page that calls Norwalk a new-build town and stops. The census says it is more interesting than that. The median Norwalk home was built in 2002 and 53.3 percent of housing went up in 2000 or later, so yes, it is young. But 10.2 percent was built before 1960, which is more than double the old stock in Ankeny or Waukee. Out of 5,820 housing units, roughly one in ten predates all of it.
So Norwalk is both things at once, an older core and a ring of new subdivisions. The city's own neighborhood list names the Founder's District and Norwalk Knolls as the oldest homes in town. Most of the rest of the city went up later.
One more thing worth saying out loud: the median home in Norwalk is now worth more than the median home in West Des Moines, and well above the Iowa median. People assume the money is all on the west side of the metro. On this measure it is not.
And it has not stopped. The city took out 304 single-family permits in 2024 alone. That is a lot of brand new houses in a town this size.
Send the address and Tate reads your Norwalk roofline off satellite imagery.
Get my free satellite estimateNorwalk publishes its own list of neighborhoods, which is unusual and genuinely useful. It also has three golf courses inside one small city, and that changes who can see your house.
About 600 homes built around Lake Colchester, which is man-made. A lake means open water in front of a whole arc of houses, and open water reflects. Homes here get seen from across the lake, from angles no ladder-and-garage light job accounts for.
Homes sit intermixed with the country club golf course. That means long open sightlines and back elevations that are visible to more people than a normal back yard ever is. Worth deciding on purpose whether you light only the street side.
Over 900 homes wrapped around 18 holes, sitting near the geographic center of the city. With that many houses in one place, a dark one gets obvious once the neighbors start.
The oldest homes in Norwalk, by the city's own list. An older house can mean older gutters and fewer places to plug in, so Tate checks the attachment points and the outdoor outlets on your house before install day. Different job, different day.
The west side fills out with Timber View, Timber Ridge, Silverado and Blooming Heights, roughly 450 homes between them, plus Warrior Run, Windflower, Rolling Green, Brody's Landing, Holland Pointe and Hughes Century Crossing. Norwalk Central is adding 70 acres of housing, shops, trails and an amphitheatre on top of all that.
Three golf courses inside one small city is not normal, and two of them have homes built right into them. Norwalk also straddles two counties, Warren and Polk. Put those two things together and you get streets that feel nothing like a Waukee street, even though a lot of the houses went up in the same years.
One price covers the install, the whole season, January takedown and storage.
Get my free satellite estimateIf you have searched for a Norwalk holiday decorating contest, you have probably found one. It is not this Norwalk.
The "Norwalk Holiday Home and Business Decor Contest" belongs to Norwalk, California. Its city website is norwalk.org. Ours is norwalk.iowa.gov. Search results for Norwalk holiday events also pull in Norwalk, Connecticut, so almost everything you find is about somebody else's town.
Norwalk, Iowa does not run a residential lighting contest, and it does not have a famous decorated street. We are not going to pretend otherwise to make this page sound better. If you want a judged contest, that is Windsor Heights, and we work there too.
The city lights its own tree on a Friday evening in early December, over at the fieldhouse on North Avenue. And Fellowship Community Church at 225 North Avenue runs a drive-through display of more than 70,000 LED lights synced to music, with a live nativity, on its own set of December evenings. That one has been going for well over a decade and it is the closest thing this town has to a lights tradition.
A city with no decorating tradition is a city where one good roofline still gets noticed. On streets where every house is the same age and the same shape, the difference between a lit house and a dark one is the only difference there is. The tree lighting in early December is a fair deadline to aim at. Be up and clean before the town gathers, not the week after.
Free estimate, no appointment, and nobody walks your property for it.
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A simple newer ranch or a first-floor-only run. If your roofline is short, reachable and straight, and you do not mind the ladder, you can hang your own. That is a fair call and we will say so.
A three-gable two-story with a steep front peak. This is the shape where people give up halfway and light the garage only.
The back elevation on a lake or fairway lot. If your house faces water or a golf course, decide up front whether the back gets lit too. It costs more and it is not automatically worth it. Tate will tell you which side actually gets seen.
How the clips work. Pro-grade clips made for gutters, shingles and fascia, attached without nails or screws wherever the roofline allows. Where a spot does not allow it, Tate agrees the method with you before he starts.
Go deeper: what drives the price • when to book • doing it yourself • a bulb out in December • everything we install
Nearby: West Des Moines • Windsor Heights • Waukee
Send us the address. Tate pulls satellite imagery of your roofline, measures the runs and counts the peaks off the image, and texts a real ballpark back. Usually the same day. No appointment, and nobody comes to your house for this part.
Two fields. Tate reads your roofline off satellite imagery and texts a ballpark back, usually the same day.
Rather talk first? Call or text 515-585-9079, or use the contact page.
