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Crack Filling and Sealing in Osseo

Crack Filling and Sealing in Osseo, Wisconsin.

Hot rubber crack filling for driveways and lots in Osseo, 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. 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.
1,818 People in Osseo
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Osseo
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Crack Filling and Sealing Job Looks Like in Osseo

The interchange is the story. Travel-stop and fuel surface takes a kind of punishment almost nothing else does: constant heavy vehicles, tight turning circles, fuel and oil on the surface, and no quiet season to repair in. Sealer won't stick to a fuel-contaminated apron, and that has to be dealt with before anything else happens.

Away from the interchange, Tenth Street is the commercial strip and Eighth Street carries the hospital. Those are ordinary lots with ordinary wear, and they get quoted like anywhere else.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Osseo

Unglaciated ground holds water more slowly than the sand up the Chippewa valley, so an open crack here stays wet longer and does more damage per winter. Filling before the freeze is worth more than the surface suggests.

The Driveways and Lots in Osseo

Osseo sits where the north and south forks of the Buffalo River meet, in Trempealeau County, and more importantly where three routes converge: US 10, US 53 and Interstate 94. For a village of 1,811 that produces a commercial profile far larger than the population, concentrated around the interchange.

Over 28 percent of Osseo's housing was built in the 1970s, the sharpest single-decade concentration of any town in the service area. About a third predates 1960 and fewer than eighty units have gone up since 2000.

A 1970s drive is now fifty years old. Some were built properly and have been sealed on a cycle; those are straightforward. Others have never been touched, and on those the honest question is whether there's still a base worth building on.

Osseo

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

Around Osseo: Buffalo River, Buffalo River State Trail, I-94 interchange.

Standard 48-inch frost depth. Osseo sits on unglaciated ground like Strum, so the subgrade is residual soil rather than the sorted outwash of the Chippewa valley.

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 Osseo

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 Osseo

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 Osseo

What Osseo calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
Our lot is by the interstate and gets truck traffic all day. Can it be sealed?
Yes, and it needs more prep than a normal lot. Fuel and oil contamination has to be cleaned and primed first or the sealer won't bond to it, and the turning areas usually take two coats where the rest takes one.
Our driveway is from about 1975 and has never been sealed. Too late?
Not necessarily, and you're in a large club: over a quarter of Osseo's housing is from that decade. Fifty years with no sealing means the surface is certainly spent, but if the base beneath it's sound the drive is still worth saving. That's a look rather than a guess.
There is fuel and oil on our apron. Can it still be sealed?
Not until that is dealt with, and this is the one thing about Osseo that catches people out. Sealer will not bond to a fuel-contaminated surface: it lifts, and it lifts in exactly the spots that mattered. Around the interchange, travel-stop and fuel surface is the norm rather than the exception. The contaminated areas get treated before anything goes on top, and anybody quoting a seal on that apron without mentioning it has not looked at it.
Is Osseo far enough south that the drive costs us something?
No. It is about twenty-five minutes down I-94 and we are through here often enough that it is not a special trip. As anywhere at that distance, two or three drives on the same street in one visit costs each of you noticeably less than one on its own.
We're right off the interchange and our lot takes semi traffic. Is that different?
Yes, and Osseo has more of it than a village of 1,800 normally would, because US 10, US 53 and Interstate 94 all meet here. A lot taking loaded trucks fails in specific places rather than evenly: where they turn in, where they stop, and wherever a trailer's landing gear comes down. Those spots need full-depth repair or concrete, not sealer, and the rest of the lot is usually fine. Worth walking the truck route separately from the car parking when we look at it.
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 Osseo 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 Osseo

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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