Handyman in West Side, Evansville

Evansville's West Side has always felt a little like its own town, and for a while it was. Much of the area around West Franklin Street began as Lamasco, a separate town laid out in the 1830s and merged with Evansville in 1857, and later neighborhoods like Howell grew up around the railroad shops and yards. German immigrants built a large share of the original West Side, and their churches, taverns and solid brick houses still set the tone. The blocks closest to Franklin Street and St. Joseph Avenue are lined with modest brick and frame homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s on narrow lots, many with alleys, detached garages and basements. Farther west and up the hill toward Reitz High School and the bluffs above the river, the streets get curvier, with bungalows, 1940s cottages and postwar ranches, and out past Red Bank Road and toward the University of Southern Indiana the houses get newer still. West Siders tend to stay put, and so do their houses: plenty of homes here have been in the same family for generations, which means original plaster, older plumbing and a long history of do-it-yourself fixes that sometimes need sorting out.

Franklin Street is the West Side's main street, a wide, old commercial strip of taverns, shops and restaurants, and every October it closes down for the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival, one of the largest street festivals in the state, when food booths fill the street and the whole neighborhood turns out. St. Joseph Avenue and Pennsylvania Street carry traffic north and south, the Lloyd Expressway runs west toward the university and Mount Vernon, and Diamond Avenue cuts across the north edge. Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden sits in the hills on the northwest side, Helfrich Park and its golf course nearby, and Burdette Park is just southwest, with its pool and trails. Houses here sit close together on narrow lots, and many back up to alleys where the trash cans, garages and parking live. That means we often park and unload from the alley, carry materials in by hand and keep everything tidy so neighbors can still get through.

ZIP codes we cover in West Side: 47712

What West Side neighbors book most

• Drywall Repair
• Door Repair & Adjustment
• Faucet & Toilet Repair
• Light Fixture Installation
• Fence & Gate Repair
• Gutter Cleaning & Repair

Jobs we handle a lot around West Side

On the West Side we see a lot of old-house work. Plaster cracks over doorways and along stairwells, doors and windows that stick after a century of settling, worn hardware on original doors, and porch columns, steps and railings that need re-securing. In kitchens and bathrooms, we replace worn faucets and shutoff valves, rebuild or replace running toilets and swap old ceiling lights for newer fixtures, with licensed electricians tying in the connections where wiring is older. Outside, it's chain-link and wood fence repairs along alleys, sagging gates, gutters clogged with leaves from big street trees, basement window wells packed with debris, and pressure washing brick, concrete steps and back patios. Farther west, in the postwar ranches and newer homes, the list leans toward ceiling fans, TV mounting, garage storage and pressure washing vinyl siding.

Questions we hear in West Side

Everything we offer in West Side

Nearby areas we also cover