Home services in Providence, RI

Getting to know Providence

Providence is the state capital, and its housing ranges from Victorian single-family homes on the East Side to rows of wood-frame triple-deckers in neighborhoods like Elmwood and Olneyville. College Hill, home to Brown University and RISD, packs older homes and student rentals onto steep streets where parking a service van takes some planning. Federal Hill, best known for Atwells Avenue, mixes apartments over storefronts with multi-family houses that are well over a century old.

The Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck rivers meet downtown to form the Providence River, and low-lying blocks near the water have a long flood history. The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier was finished in the 1960s after the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954 put downtown under water. Mount Pleasant and Elmhurst on the north side are largely single-family and two-family homes on small lots, many built in the first half of the 1900s.

A lot of Providence housing is renter-occupied, so a repair often involves a landlord, a tenant and sometimes a property manager. Winters bring nor'easters and freeze-thaw cycles, and summers turn humid, which is hard on old wood framing, roofs and mechanical systems. Washington Park and South Providence sit close to the port and I-95, with many two- and three-family homes on narrow lots. Wayland and Blackstone on the East Side have larger early-1900s homes, many with original plaster walls and older wiring hidden behind them.

Who runs what in Providence

Providence Water serves the city directly, drawing from the Scituate Reservoir and treating it at the Philip J. Holton plant in Scituate. Wastewater goes to the Narragansett Bay Commission, and Rhode Island Energy supplies electricity and natural gas. Building permits come from the city's Department of Inspection and Standards.