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Crack Filling and Sealing in Augusta

Crack Filling and Sealing in Augusta, Wisconsin.

Hot rubber crack filling for driveways and lots in Augusta, before the freeze does the expensive part.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 25 minutes southeast of Eau Claire on Highway 12. Free estimates, and a straight read on whether it needs doing yet.

A web of freshly filled cracks running across a parking lot, the rubber still glossy.
1,495 People in Augusta
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Augusta
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Crack Filling and Sealing Job Looks Like in Augusta

Lincoln Street is the commercial spine, carrying Highway 12 east and west through town, with the bank, the hardware store, the pharmacy, the clinic and most of the food and drink strung along it. Stone Street is the secondary cluster.

Industrial Drive at the west end is where the square footage is. Augusta has a genuine industrial base for a town of 1,567, including the plant where Bush's baked beans were first made, and that's loading dock and truck yard surface rather than parking lot. It fails differently and it gets specified differently.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Augusta

This is the service that matters most in Augusta. With a damp subgrade under a lot of these drives, every crack left open puts more water where it does the most damage. Hot rubber before freeze-up is the cheapest year you can buy. Bridge Creek and Diamond Valley Creek both run through town and both are trout water, which is a pleasant way of saying the water table here is closer to the surface than it is under most towns we work in.

The Driveways and Lots in Augusta

Augusta sits in southeastern Eau Claire County where Highway 12 runs east and Highway 27 crosses it, about ten miles north of the interstate. Bridge Creek and Diamond Valley Creek run through town, both trout water, which is a nicer way of saying there's more groundwater under this town than under most.

Augusta has the oldest building profile of any town in the southern half of the service area. A third of its houses were built before 1940, more than three quarters before 1980, and just seven units went up in the entire 2010s.

So the honest starting question here is rarely what color sealer. It's whether the drive under it's still worth protecting. On a good number of Augusta drives it very much is, because a well-built old surface outlasts a badly built new one. On others the base gave out years ago and no coating changes that.

Augusta

We work the whole village rather than a named handful of neighborhoods.

Around Augusta: Lincoln Street, Dells Mill, Augusta Wildlife Area.

Standard 48-inch frost depth, with more shallow groundwater than the norm because of the two creeks. Wet subgrade heaves harder than dry subgrade does.

From our jobs

Job Photos

The crack crew's trucks and melter working a tree-lined road, road work sign up
The crack crew working a town road
The company flatbed and the yellow crack-seal melter on a road shoulder, two crew in hi-vis working ahead of it
The melter on site, crew working ahead of it

All job photos

Hot rubber vs. cold pour

The stuff in a jug at the hardware store is cold pour. It goes in as a liquid, dries, shrinks, and sits in the crack like a rubber band laid in a trench. It's not bonded to anything. The first hard freeze pulls the crack open, the filler has nothing holding it to the walls, and it lifts out in a strip. Most people have seen this happen and assumed it was a bad batch. Hot-applied rubber goes in at around 400 degrees. At that temperature it's thin enough to run down into the crack instead of bridging it, and hot enough to melt into the asphalt faces on either side. When it cools it has bonded to the walls of the crack, so when the crack moves, the filler moves with it.

Cold pour

The jug from the hardware store, and what a cheap quote uses

  • Sits in the crack rather than bonding to it
  • Shrinks as it cures, leaving a channel down the middle
  • Pulls out in strips after the first hard winter
  • Cheap enough that it gets redone every year, which isn't cheap

Hot-applied rubber

What comes off our kettle

  • Flows to the bottom of the crack at 400 degrees
  • Melts into the asphalt faces and bonds to both walls
  • Stays flexible, so it moves when the crack moves
  • Holds for years, not for one season

This is the one place where the cheaper option isn't a smaller version of the right one. It's a different product doing a different thing.

What Decides the Price in Augusta

Priced by the foot of crack, not by the area of the surface, because that's what actually drives the work. Usually done as part of a sealcoating job, where it costs less than it would on its own.

With a sealcoat job

Driveway

Measured on site

  • Most driveways need some, and it's included up to a point
  • Heavy cracking is quoted separately and said up front

Crack filling alone

Driveway, no sealcoat

Measured on site

  • Worth doing on its own if the surface is otherwise sound

Commercial lot

Per linear foot

Measured on site

  • Depends on crack width, depth and how much routing it needs
  • Most lots are quoted as a lump sum after a walk

Cracks wider than about an inch and a half, or ones that have broken into a network, are past filling. Those get cut out and patched rather than filled with something that will not hold.

How the Work Goes in Augusta

Done before sealer, always: sealer can't bridge an open crack.

Clean the crack out

Blown out with compressed air, vegetation and old failed filler removed. Rubber won't bond to dirt any more than sealer will.

Rout the wide ones

Wide or heavily worked cracks get cut to a consistent reservoir so the filler has a proper shape to sit in. Not every crack needs it; the ones that do are the ones that have already failed once.

Fill hot

Direct-fire kettle, rubber at 400 degrees, wanded into the crack until it's full from the bottom up rather than skinned over at the top.

Squeegee and let it set

Struck off flush or slightly banded over, depending on the surface. Sets hard enough to drive on in under an hour in most conditions.

Booking sealcoating and striping through October · Call (715) 450-9897

Questions We Get in Augusta

What Augusta calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
The ground here is wet. Does that change what we should do?
It changes what matters. Augusta has two creeks through it and shallower groundwater than most towns we work in, and wet subgrade heaves harder in a freeze than dry subgrade does. That makes crack sealing worth more here than average, because keeping surface water out of an already damp base is the whole game.
Almost nothing new has been built here. Does that make it harder to price?
It makes the looking matter more and the measuring matter less. Seven housing units went up in Augusta in the whole of the 2010s, so essentially every drive in town has decades on it and a history we cannot see from the road. The square footage takes a minute. Working out whether what is under the surface is still worth protecting is the part that decides the number.
Can you work the Industrial Drive properties, or is that a different contractor?
Same contractor, different job. Dock aprons and truck yards take loading that a parking lot never sees, so they fail as rutting along a repeated wheel path and as edge break-up rather than as a hole in the middle. Those are full-depth repairs and they want walking before a number goes on paper. Start that conversation ahead of the season rather than during it.
Is Augusta far enough out that the drive costs us something?
Augusta is about twenty-five minutes southeast on Highway 12 and it is inside the area we work rather than at the edge of it. The estimate is free, and the number you approve is the number you pay.
How much does crack filling cost?
It is priced by the linear foot of crack rather than by the size of the surface, so a big driveway with four cracks costs less than a small one that has opened up all over. Width matters too: anything wide enough to need routing out first takes longer. On a driveway it is usually included up to a point when it is done with a sealcoat rather than billed on its own.
Why does the temperature of the crack filler matter?
At 400 degrees the rubber is thin enough to reach the bottom of the crack and hot enough to melt into the asphalt on both sides, so it bonds. Cold pour filler can't do either, which is why it lifts out in strips after a winter.
Should I fill cracks before sealcoating or after?
Before, always. Sealer is a thin wear layer and it can't bridge an open crack. Sealing over one changes its color and nothing else, and the crack reappears through the new surface within weeks.
Is there a crack too big to fill?
Yes. Past about an inch and a half, or once cracking has broken into a network of squares, filling won't hold because the surface around it is moving independently. Those areas get cut out and patched instead.
When is the best time of year for crack filling?
Spring or early fall in Augusta and the surrounding area is ideal, because cracks are at a middling width. In high summer they're at their tightest and in deep winter they're at their widest, and filling at either extreme means the filler is working against the movement rather than with it.

Get a Free Estimate in Augusta

Tell us what it looks like and we'll come measure it. You get a written price before anything starts.

(715) 450-9897
  • Free on driveways and lots anywhere in the service area
  • A photo of the problem helps, and it can go in the message
  • Surfaces that are not ready yet get told so at the estimate

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Other Work We Do in Augusta

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Everything about crack filling and sealing, including how the work goes and what changes the price