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Waukee, Iowa

Christmas Light Installation In Waukee, Iowa

Waukee barely existed twenty years ago. Four out of five homes here went up in 2000 or later, and this is the one town in the metro that asked its own residents to vote on the best lit house.

Where Waukee Sits

No City In This Metro Is Newer Than Waukee

This is not a figure of speech. It is the census, and it is not close.

2011

The median build year of a Waukee home. The newest of any city we serve. Clive sits at 1995, West Des Moines at 1994, Urbandale at 1992.

American Community Survey 2020 to 2024, table B25035
80%

Of Waukee homes were built in 2000 or later. Only 4 percent go back before 1960.

American Community Survey 2020 to 2024, table B25034
7,883

More people in four years. The 2020 count was 23,940. The 2024 Special Census came back at 31,823. In 2000 Waukee had 5,126 residents, so the city is 6.2 times the size it was.

Waukee 2024 Special Census, U.S. Census Bureau

What a young city does to a light job

Waukee has 12,216 housing units and a median owner-occupied value of $350,500. Most of those units did not exist when the last decade started.

Kettlestone is the clearest example. The city unveiled that corridor in 2014 along Alice's Road, about 1,500 acres in three districts, Keetown Loop, Kettlestone Central and Kettlestone Lakes. Those are streets that did not exist when a lot of the metro was already middle-aged.

Young stock does not mean every house is the same, though, so we measure yours on its own. Two houses on the same Waukee street can carry very different runs, and the number comes off your roofline, not off a table.

Want the number for your Waukee house? It takes no appointment.

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A Waukee Habit

Waukee Asked Its Neighbors To Judge The Lights

No other city we serve has ever handed the scoring to the people who live on the street.

How the Holiday Lights Contest worked

Waukee Parks and Recreation ran a resident Holiday Lights Contest. Homeowners entered their own house. The Park Board narrowed the field to a top ten. Then residents drove the ten and voted, one vote per person.

In 2022 the winning house took 517 of 1,620 votes cast. Think about that second number for a second. Over sixteen hundred people in one town went out, looked at rooflines, and had an opinion strong enough to record. It ran in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

We are not going to promise it is running this year

The city pages that announced the contest now return an error, and it is not on the current festivals list. We could not confirm it for recent seasons, so we are not going to tell you to enter something that may not exist.

If it matters to you, call Waukee Parks and Recreation at (515) 978-0007 and ask them directly. That is a two minute phone call and they will give you a straight answer. What we can say for certain is what Waukee has done, and no other city on our list has done it.

WinterFest sets the real deadline

Waukee holds WinterFest on the first Friday of December, free, in the Downtown Triangle from 4 to 8 p.m. The tree lighting is at 6 p.m. in Triangle Park, with Santa and the Mayor. There is an ice sculptor, a snowball drop and s'mores. Triangle Park itself is half an acre with a gazebo, at Ashworth Drive and 6th Street.

That first Friday is the night the town is out together. If your house is dark that week, it is dark for the one evening everybody in Waukee is looking at everybody else. Which is why the practical booking deadline here is the week before Thanksgiving, not the first week of December. Installs start in mid-October.

Booked before Thanksgiving, your Waukee house is lit for WinterFest week.

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New Streets

On A New Waukee Street, The Roofline Is The Display

On an older street, a big front tree does half the work. Wrap the trunk, throw some warm white up into the branches, and the house has depth before you touch the roof.

A newer Waukee street often does not offer that. Waukee is a Tree City USA recipient and the planting is real, but a tree put in with a new subdivision takes years before it can carry a display. Where the trees are still young, the roofline is the display, and every peak you skip and every sag in a run is visible.

That is the argument for cutting to the house rather than buying a fixed length at the store. On a bare new lot, straight lines and even spacing are the entire look.

Waukee is not actually a new town

The houses are new. The town is not. The Shuler Coal Mine operated here from 1921 to 1949 and was Iowa's largest coal producer, with a shaft going down 387 feet and as many as 500 men working it.

There is a Coal Mine Museum at the library and a 13-foot coal sculpture where Douglas and Berkshire Parkways meet. It is a good reminder that the newest housing stock in the metro is sitting on top of a hundred year old town.

12,216 units, $350,500 median value

Waukee's housing count and its median owner-occupied home value, from the same census tables. The value sits above Urbandale and West Des Moines and below Clive.

55.9 percent detached single-family

This is the number nobody expects. Waukee is the newest city we serve, and only 55.9 percent of its housing is detached single-family. That is less than Norwalk at 73.3 percent, Urbandale at 69 percent or Ankeny at 58.2 percent. Nearly half of Waukee's units are townhomes, condos or apartments. New suburb does not mean big detached house here.

66.5 percent own their home

Run the three numbers together and Waukee works out to roughly 4,500 detached owner-occupied homes. Smaller than Urbandale, and still growing.

Send the address. Tate reads the Waukee roofline off satellite imagery.

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Being Straight With You

When You Should Just Do It Yourself In Waukee

Three honest notes for this city

A single-story starter house with one straight front run is a fine afternoon. Waukee has a lot of those. If you can reach the whole run from a step ladder and you like doing it, go do it. We will not pretend that is a job you need to hire out.

A townhome is a different conversation. With 55.9 percent detached, plenty of Waukee addresses share a roofline with the neighbor. If a run would cross onto somebody else's roof, that gets sorted with them and with your association before we touch it, not after.

We will not tell you what your covenant says. Nobody can honestly tell you the rules for your subdivision without reading yours. Iowa records declarations for all 99 counties free at iowalandrecords.org, and Waukee is in Dallas County. For what it is worth, Waukee has no city ordinance on holiday decorations, seasonal lighting or takedown timing. Neither does any other city in this metro.

Real Rooflines

Work Around Waukee

Real houses we lit. No stock photos.

Evenly spaced warm white C9 bulbs following the front gutter line of a home at night
Warm white roofline lighting tracing every peak and eave of a large two story house
C9 bulbs cut to fit the eaves, garage line and front gable of a suburban home at dusk
Color changing permanent roofline lighting glowing along the eaves of a home in winter
What You Get

One Price, From October To Storage

  • Commercial-grade C9 bulbs, cut to fit your roofline
  • Pro-grade clips that attach without nails or screws wherever the roofline allows
  • Maintenance all season, with a bulb out or a loose clip fixed within 48 hours
  • Takedown in January, booked with you
  • Storage of your set until the following October, labeled for your address

The hardware is yours once the job is paid for. We hold it for you between seasons so it is not taking up your garage, and we bring your own set back out the next October.

Tate is the one on the roof. You are hiring the owner of a small local outfit, not a call center that sends whoever is free that week.

Go deeper: what drives the price • what we install • when to book • doing it yourself • get an estimate

Nearby: Adel • Clive • Urbandale

Get Your Free Waukee Roofline Estimate

Send the address. Tate pulls satellite imagery of your Waukee roofline, measures the runs, counts the peaks, and texts a real ballpark back. Usually the same day. Nobody comes to your house for this part.

Get your Waukee estimate

Two fields. Tate reads your roofline off satellite imagery and texts a ballpark back, usually the same day. No appointment needed for that part.

Required: texting is how Tate sends your estimate and confirms your install date.

The estimate is free and there is no obligation. Installs start mid-October and the calendar fills before Thanksgiving, so earlier is better.

Would rather just ask? Call or text Tate at 515-585-9079.

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