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Asphalt Repair and Patching in Chetek

Asphalt Repair and Patching in Chetek, Wisconsin.

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

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 45 minutes north of Eau Claire on Highway 53. 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.
2,169 People in Chetek
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Chetek
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What an Asphalt Repair and Patching Job Looks Like in Chetek

The downtown runs along Second Street on the water, tight lots with shared access, and it carries a summer trade far larger than the winter population. The highway corridor west of town is where the newer commercial surface is.

Seasonality is the thing to plan around here in a way it's not elsewhere. A resort, a bar or a marina lot can't be closed in July, and doesn't need to be open in February. That points work at May or September rather than at the middle of the season, and it means booking early rather than calling when it's already busy.

Asphalt Repair and Patching specifically in Chetek

Shoreline ground drains differently and a lot of lake drives were built thin over whatever was there. Where the base has gone soft, patching the surface buys a season at most. The downtown lots along Second Street are the other case: tight, shared access, and a repair there is as much about staging around a business as it is about the asphalt.

The Driveways and Lots in Chetek

Chetek is the far northern edge of what we cover, in Barron County, built on the chain of six lakes that runs through the middle of town. Open water covers most of a square mile inside the city limits, which is why a city of 2,172 has the property profile it does.

Chetek's building peak is the 1980s, later than any other town in the service area, and the reason is the shoreline. Lake lots filled in through the seventies and eighties, and a fifth of the housing dates from that period.

Lake property brings its own driveway problem. A lot of these are long, they run toward water, they get used hard for three months and sit for nine, and a good number were built as seasonal access rather than as year-round drives. That's a different starting point from a subdivision.

Chetek

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

Around Chetek: Chetek chain of lakes, Second Street, Highway 53 corridor.

The furthest north we work, so the season is genuinely shorter at both ends. Surface work here books earlier in the fall than it does down the valley.

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 Chetek

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 Chetek

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 Chetek

What Chetek calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
When can you do our resort lot without shutting us down in the season?
May or September, and booked ahead. Sealing needs the surface clear and dry, with 24 hours before traffic goes back on, so the calendar is the first thing to settle. What doesn't work is calling in July and needing it done that week.
How long is a lake driveway compared to one in town, and does that change the price?
Often several times longer, which is the main reason a Chetek quote and an Eau Claire quote for the same house look different. A rural or shoreline drive gets measured rather than estimated by eye, so you're getting a number for your drive rather than an average one. The estimate is free, and the number you approve is the number you pay.
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 Chetek

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

Send the form and we'll call you back. The estimate is free.

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