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Asphalt Repair and Patching in Cameron

Asphalt Repair and Patching in Cameron, Wisconsin.

Pothole, patch and sinkhole repair in Cameron, cut back to sound material and rebuilt properly.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 50 minutes north of Eau Claire. Free estimates, and a straight read on whether it needs doing yet.

A Bobcat skid steer beside two saw-cut sections of asphalt on a commercial parking lot, work area coned off while cars stay parked around it.
1,851 People in Cameron
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Cameron
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What an Asphalt Repair and Patching Job Looks Like in Cameron

Highway commercial is what Cameron has, strung along the two US routes rather than concentrated in a downtown block. That means larger lots with their own access and room to work, unlike a shared alley downtown.

It also means heavier vehicles than a village this size would otherwise see. Traffic that's passing through rather than stopping still turns, brakes and parks, and highway-frontage surface wears at the entrances first for that reason. If a lot here is failing, the aprons are usually where it started.

Asphalt Repair and Patching specifically in Cameron

Highway-frontage lots fail at the entrance, where vehicles turn off a road at speed onto a surface that was never built as heavy as the road. Those aprons get rebuilt full depth rather than patched.

The Driveways and Lots in Cameron

Cameron sits in Barron County where US Highway 8 meets US Highway 53, which is the reason to know it. Highway 8 is the main east-west route across northern Wisconsin and 53 is the north-south spine, so a village of 1,872 sits on a genuine crossroads and carries the traffic that goes with one.

Cameron is younger than the towns around it. Only about a quarter of its housing predates 1960 and roughly a fifth has been built since 2000, which is the opposite of the pattern in most of the north end of the area. It is not the newest place we work; Lake Hallie and Altoona both have a larger share built since 2000. It is the newest thing this far north, which is what matters if you live here.

For a driveway that's good news with one catch. A drive from the 2000s is very likely worth maintaining and very likely still has a sound base under it. But a twenty-year-old drive that has never been sealed is right at the point where neglect starts costing real money, and a lot of Cameron is exactly that age.

Cameron

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

Around Cameron: US 8 and US 53 junction, Cameron schools, Hay River.

The far north of what we cover, so both ends of the season close in earlier than they do in Eau Claire. Standard 48-inch frost depth.

From our jobs

Job Photos

Two fresh asphalt patches laid in a worn parking lot, cones still around them
Full-depth patches laid and coned off
A crew member kneeling at a stall line working patch material by hand
Hand work at the stall lines
A fresh full-depth asphalt patch coned off in a commercial lot outside an industrial building with dock doors
A full-depth patch outside the dock doors

All job photos

Filled vs. repaired

The pothole that comes back every spring is being filled rather than repaired. Cold patch is a temporary measure and an honest one when it's sold as that: it's loose material tamped into a hole, with no bond to the sides and nothing done about the failed base underneath. It gets you through a winter. A real repair means cutting a clean square back to material that's still sound, taking out everything soft below it, putting the base back and compacting it in lifts, then laying hot asphalt and rolling it. The patch ends up stronger than what is around it, which is why the failure doesn't come back through the middle of it.

Filled

The quick version

  • Cold patch tamped into the hole as found
  • Ragged edges, so there's nothing to key against
  • Failed base left in place
  • Back within a season, usually wider

Repaired

What we do

  • Saw cut to clean vertical edges, back to sound asphalt
  • Soft material dug out until the bottom is firm
  • Base replaced and compacted in lifts
  • Hot mix laid, rolled, and the joint sealed

Cold patch has its place: it's the right call in February when nothing else can be done. It's the wrong call in July.

What Decides the Price in Cameron

Repairs are priced by area and by how deep the trouble goes, and the depth isn't knowable until it's open. These are the bands most jobs land in.

Single pothole

Up to a few square feet

Measured on site

  • Saw cut, dig out, base, hot mix, compact
  • Cheaper alongside other work

Failed area or apron

Roughly 50 to 300 sq ft

Measured on site

  • The common commercial repair, and the garage apron at home
  • Priced per square foot once the area is measured

Sinkhole or subgrade failure

Depth unknown until opened

Measured on site

  • Often a drainage or utility problem underneath
  • Assessed and quoted before the machine moves

Several repairs on one visit come down substantially per repair, because getting the machine and the crew on site is most of the cost of a small one. If you have three, have them all looked at.

Repair or repave?

Most lots that get deferred don't need repaving.

What we look at before quoting either one.

  • Two or three potholes, the rest of the surface is soundStraightforward patching. Nowhere near needing an overlay.
  • The garage apron has sunk where it meets the concreteCommon and fixable. Usually settlement under the transition, cut out and rebuilt.
  • Cracked into squares in a few areas, sound elsewhereCut those areas out full depth, patch, then seal the whole surface.
  • That squared cracking across most of the lotThe base has gone broadly. Patching it becomes a rolling cost with no end. An overlay or a rebuild is the answer.
  • Water sits in the same spot after every rainGrade or drainage, and it has to be solved before any surface work, or the new surface fails in exactly the same place.

Photos of the worst two areas are usually enough for us to tell you which it is.

How the Work Goes in Cameron

Same method on a driveway apron and on a loading dock approach.

Find the edge of the failure

The visible hole is smaller than the damage. We sound out where the surface is still supported and cut outside that, not around the hole.

Saw cut square, clean vertical faces

A patch keyed against a clean edge stays. A patch feathered against a ragged one fails at the joint, which is why so many patches fail in a ring.

Dig out to something firm

Everything soft comes out. If the bottom is wet, that's a drainage problem and the best patch in the world won't last sitting on water.

Base back in, compacted in lifts

Compacted in layers rather than dumped and rolled once. This is the invisible step that decides whether the repair lasts two years or twenty.

Hot mix, rolled, joint sealed

Laid to the surrounding grade so water still runs where it's supposed to, compacted, and the perimeter joint sealed against the next freeze.

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

Questions We Get in Cameron

What Cameron calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
Our driveway is about twenty years old and looks fine. Does it need anything?
Twenty years is exactly when this question is worth asking, and Cameron has a lot of drives that age. If it's still black and tight, sealing now is cheap protection. If it has gone gray and the surface stones are loose underfoot, oxidation is already well along and sealing is overdue rather than optional. Either way it's a look, not a sales call.
Is Cameron too far north for you to come up?
No, and it is fair to ask, because at about fifty minutes it is the furthest town north we hold a page for. We come up here. What is worth doing at this distance is asking before the season rather than in the middle of it, and saying so if a neighbor wants theirs done the same week. The estimate is free, and the number you approve is the number you pay.
Our lot fronts the highway and it's breaking up at the entrance. Why there?
Because the entrance is doing a job the rest of the lot is not. A vehicle turning off US 8 or US 53 comes onto your surface still carrying road speed and road weight, onto asphalt that was never built as heavy as the highway it just left. Aprons on highway frontage fail first almost every time. They get rebuilt full depth rather than patched, because a patch there is back inside a season.
Does the shorter season up here change when work gets done?
It closes both ends rather than the middle. This is the far north of what we cover, so spring opens later and fall shuts sooner than it does down the valley. In practice that means fall crack filling here wants booking earlier than it would in Eau Claire, and a late-September sealing date is tighter than the calendar makes it look.
How much does pothole repair cost?
Square footage and depth, mostly. A pothole that stops at the surface is a different job from one where the base underneath has gone, and you cannot tell which you have until it is opened. What we can tell you before that: several repairs done on one visit come down substantially per repair, because the trip and the mobilisation are already paid for. The assessment is free.
Why does my patch keep failing?
Almost always because it was filled rather than repaired: no clean cut, no removal of the failed base, and nothing bonding it to the asphalt around it. The failure was underneath and it's still there.
Can you repair a sinkhole in a driveway or lot?
Yes, and quickly. Our newest review is a sinkhole repaired within seven days. A sinkhole means material is being washed out from underneath, usually by drainage or a failed pipe, so the repair includes finding out why.
Is it cheaper to repair the asphalt or repave it?
Repair, until roughly a quarter to a third of the surface has failed. Past that you're patching patches and an overlay becomes better value. The estimate measures how much of your surface has actually failed.
How soon can we drive on a new asphalt patch?
Hot mix takes traffic as soon as it has cooled, usually a few hours. That's the material rather than a schedule: what a specific repair means for your lot is one of the things the estimate works out.

Get a Free Estimate in Cameron

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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