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Asphalt Repair and Patching in Onalaska

Asphalt Repair and Patching in Onalaska, Wisconsin.

Pothole, patch and sinkhole repair for commercial lots in Onalaska. Saw-cut square, the failed base dug out and rebuilt, the patch compacted flush and the joint sealed.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 21 Google reviews

About an hour and forty-five minutes southeast of Eau Claire on I-94 and I-90. The estimate is free.

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.
4.7 Google ratingFrom 21 reviews
7 days Sinkhole to finishedFrom a 2026 review
Full Depth patchingNot a skim over the top

Working in Onalaska

A grocery-anchored center takes semis at the back and cars at the front, and the failures show up on the delivery side first. A trailer swinging into a dock puts its load on the same patch of pavement over and over, and that's where the base gives out. Those areas get cut back square, the base rebuilt and hot mix rolled in flush. Out front the potholes are usually shallower, and they're still worth cutting out rather than filling.

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.

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.

What Decides the Price in Onalaska

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.

How the Work Goes in Onalaska

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 cut tight 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 the last of the sealcoating season now · Call (715) 450-9897

Questions We Get in Onalaska

What Onalaska calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
How far will you come for a lot down here?
Onalaska is about 79 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and forty-five minutes down I-94 and then I-90, and for commercial lots we come. Send the address and what the lot needs and we'll set up a time to walk it. The estimate is free.
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.

The Lots and Surfaces in Onalaska

Onalaska is in La Crosse County, a city of about 19,900 between Lake Onalaska and the Highway 16 retail strip, right where I-90 and US 53 meet. It's about 79 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and forty-five minutes, off Exit 4 or Exit 5 on I-90. Ten and a half square miles at 700 feet, with Highway 35 and Highway 157 running through it as well.

The commercial center of gravity here is retail. Crosseroads Center on Highway 16 has about 68,700 square feet of leasable space with Michaels, Old Navy, Burlington and PetSmart in it, and a Sam's Club and a Target next door. Crossing Meadows, off the I-90 and US 53 interchange, is an open-air center of roughly 234,000 square feet with more than 15 stores, anchored by a Festival Foods. Highway 16 through there carries around 26,000 vehicles a day.

The employers named for Onalaska are Gundersen Health System, a Kwik Trip support center, Altra Federal Credit Union, L.B. White and Empire Screen Printing, which has been here since 1960. Kwik Trip bought the old UnitedHealthcare office building in 2023 to put its training department and part of its accounting staff in. City Hall is on Main Street, the Omni Center is the convention and arena building, and the school district has the high school on Hilltopper Place, a middle school and three elementary schools, with Luther High School and two parochial schools also in town.

Where we work in Onalaska

  • The Highway 16 retail corridor
  • Crosseroads Center
  • Crossing Meadows
  • The I-90 and US 53 interchange
  • Main Street

Around Onalaska: Onalaska Omni Center, Lake Onalaska, Crossing Meadows, City Hall on Main Street, The Frank Eugene Nichols House.

19,898 people, 2024 Census estimate.

This is Driftless country. The ice never came through, so there's no glacial drift, the bedrock sits near the surface, loess covers much of it, and the ground drains so freely that natural lakes are almost absent.

Get a Free Estimate in Onalaska

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 commercial lots and properties in Onalaska
  • 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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