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Crack Filling and Sealing in Cadott

Crack Filling and Sealing in Cadott, Wisconsin.

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

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 30 minutes northeast of Eau Claire. 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.
1,467 People in Cadott
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Cadott
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Crack Filling and Sealing Job Looks Like in Cadott

Main Street carries Highway 27 through the village and holds the hardware store, the bakery, the library, the dental and chiropractic offices and the funeral home. Tower Drive on the Highway 29 side is the industrial street, with a plastics extruder in a building of 66,000 square feet and a maple syrup operation next door.

The thing that makes Cadott unusual is what happens in summer. The festival grounds on County S bring two very large music events through a village of fifteen hundred, and for those weeks every lot in town takes traffic it was never designed for. If you run a business here, that's when your surface ages, and June is the wrong month to be starting the conversation.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Cadott

A fifty-year-old drive that has never been crack sealed usually has more open than it looks like from standing height. Filling it is cheap next to what another wet freeze cycle does through those openings. Cadott also sits far enough off the Chippewa valley floor that spring opens a few days later here than it does in town, which shortens the front of the season rather than the back of it: fall crack work beats waiting on an April that arrives late.

The Driveways and Lots in Cadott

Cadott sits in Chippewa County where Highway 27 crosses Highway 29 and the Yellow River, halfway between Chippewa Falls and Stanley on the four-lane. The village has advertised itself since 1955 as the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole, and the sign in the park is honest enough to add that the actual line is three miles north.

The 1970s are Cadott's biggest decade, at just under a quarter of the housing, with another fifth predating 1940 and very little in the 1940s or 1960s. About two thirds of the village predates 1980.

The practical read is that Cadott has two kinds of driveway and not much in between: fifty-year-old surfaces that are at or past the end of a normal life, and genuinely old ones. A 1970s drive that's been sealed on a cycle can still be in good order. One that never has is usually a different conversation.

Cadott

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

Around Cadott: Main Street, 45th parallel marker, Yellow River.

Standard 48-inch frost depth. Far enough from the Chippewa valley floor that spring opens a few days later than it does in town.

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 Cadott

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 Cadott

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 Cadott

What Cadott calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
Our lot gets hammered in festival season. When should we get work done?
Ahead of it, not after it, and that means booking in spring rather than calling in July. Sealer needs the lot clear and dry for about a day per section, which is impossible on a festival weekend and easy in May. If the damage is already done, September works too and the surface goes into winter protected.
Our driveway is from the 1970s and has never been sealed. Is it too late?
Sometimes, and Cadott is the town where that question comes up most, because the 1970s built almost a quarter of the village. A drive of that age that has been sealed on a cycle can be in genuinely good order. One that never has usually has more open in it than it looks like from standing height, and fifty winters of water into those openings does what fifty winters of water does. It is worth a look rather than a guess either way.
The village overflow parking takes cars twice a year. Does that matter?
It matters most to what is underneath. A surface specified for ordinary use and then loaded hard for two weekends a year does not fail evenly: it settles where the weight concentrated, which is usually over a storm structure or at an entrance. That is worth catching while the frame is only settling, because a reset is a fraction of a rebuild.
How far out is Cadott, and does the drive change the price?
About thirty minutes northeast, and it is well inside the area 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 Cadott 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 Cadott

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

Get an estimate

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