Handyman in Horace, ND
Horace sits a few miles southwest of Fargo and south of West Fargo, with the Sheyenne River running along its western edge. It was founded in the 1880s as a small farm town named after newspaper editor Horace Greeley, and for most of its history it stayed small: a few streets of older homes, a grain elevator, a church and a lot of open farmland around it. That has changed fast. Horace counted about 3,100 people in the 2020 census, and since then it has become one of the fastest-growing cities in North Dakota, with dozens of new subdivisions planned or built on former fields east and south of the old townsite. Most homes here now are new or close to new: two-story houses, ranches with walk-out or look-out basements, twin homes and larger lots with room for a shop or a big garage. The old part of town still has a handful of mid-century and earlier houses near the original main street. New construction on Red River Valley clay comes with a predictable first few years. The lumber dries and shrinks, the soil under the slab and footings swells and settles, and wide-open lots catch the full force of the prairie wind with few mature trees to break it. That shows up as nail pops, drywall cracks, doors that drift out of adjustment, fence panels that work loose and gutters that overflow or ice up where the builder sized them too small.
Life in Horace runs on a few roads. County Road 17 is the main street through town and the usual route north toward West Fargo, and the section-line roads, 64th and 76th Avenues South among them, carry traffic east toward south Fargo, I-29 and the shopping on 45th Street and 52nd Avenue. The Sheyenne River runs along the west side of town, lined with trees and parkland that feel worlds away from the open fields around the new subdivisions, and the Sheyenne Diversion helps carry floodwater around the city. The broader Fargo-Moorhead flood project has been taking shape around this part of the valley as well, and construction traffic and new road alignments have been a fact of life here for several seasons. Horace's students attend West Fargo Public Schools, and the area has its own high school, which says a lot about how quickly the town has grown. People here tend to be young families and commuters who want a little more space, and they often tackle a lot themselves, so the calls we get are usually for the jobs that need more tools, more hands or a licensed connection.
ZIP codes we cover in Horace: 58047
What Horace neighbors book most
- TV Mounting
- Garage Storage & Shelving
- Fence & Gate Repair
- Ceiling Fan Installation
- Smart Home Installation
- Gutter Cleaning & Repair
Jobs we handle a lot around Horace
In Horace we spend most of our time on new-home work: mounting TVs on fireplaces, in great rooms and basement family rooms, installing ceiling fans and new light fixtures, building out garage shelving and storage for trucks, trailers and toys, setting up smart thermostats, locks and video doorbells, and hanging blinds, mirrors and shelves. After the first couple of winters, the settling list follows: nail pops, cracks at corners, doors that need adjustment, and caulk and grout lines that have opened at tubs, showers and backsplashes. Outside, we fix fence panels and gates the wind has worked loose, clean and adjust gutters, add downspout extensions to keep meltwater away from the foundation, and pressure wash new concrete driveways and patios to clear off construction dust, mud and road salt. In the older homes near the original townsite, it's more often worn plumbing fixtures, aging light fixtures and doors that have shifted over the decades.
Questions we hear in Horace
We just closed on a new build in Horace. What should we get done first?
Most new homeowners here start with the things that make the house livable: TVs mounted, ceiling fans added in bedrooms and the living room, blinds and curtain rods hung, garage shelving and wall storage, and a smart thermostat or hardwired video doorbell. Our licensed electricians take care of the fan and fixture connections. After the first winter, it's worth a second visit for the settling-in items like nail pops, corner cracks and door adjustments, since fixing those too early often means doing them twice.
The wind out here is brutal on our fence. Can you make it hold up better?
We can help a lot. Open lots in Horace's newer subdivisions have few trees to slow the wind, and a solid privacy fence acts like a sail. We check post depth and spacing, reset posts that the frost or wind has loosened, add bracing at long runs and gates, and replace hinges and latches with heavier hardware. For a gate that keeps sagging, we add an anti-sag kit or rebuild the frame so it stays square.
Is it worth cleaning gutters on a new house with hardly any trees?
Yes, though maybe not as often. Even without big trees, gutters on new homes catch roofing granules, construction debris, dust, cottonwood fluff blowing in from the river and leaves from neighbors' young trees. The bigger issue is often how they were installed: downspouts that dump right next to the foundation or sections pitched the wrong way so water sits and freezes. We clean them, check the pitch, fix loose hangers and extend downspouts so spring melt runs away from your basement.
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