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Catch Basin Repair in Menomonie

Catch Basin Repair in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Catch basin repair and rebuild for commercial lots in Menomonie. Cut back, rebuilt, the frame reset to grade and the asphalt keyed back in.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 25 minutes west of Eau Claire on I-94. Free estimates, and a straight read on whether it needs doing yet.

A freshly poured square concrete collar finished flush around a storm drain grate in a striped commercial parking lot.
16,709 People in Menomonie
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Menomonie
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Catch Basin Repair Job Looks Like in Menomonie

The rental belt around the university is its own kind of work. A converted single-family drive carrying four or five vehicles wears in a pattern the original surface was never designed for, and the owner is usually a landlord making a maintenance decision rather than a homeowner making an appearance one. Those two buyers want different conversations and we have both.

Commercially, Menomonie punches above its population. Manufacturing is the largest employment sector in the county, and names like 3M, Ford, Andersen and the Walmart distribution center mean industrial lots with genuine truck loading on them.

Catch Basin Repair specifically in Menomonie

The Highway 25 north retail corridor and the industrial parks around the airport and Stout Technology Park are where the commercial basin work is. Truck traffic at the distribution and manufacturing sites is what makes a settling frame urgent rather than cosmetic.

The Driveways and Lots in Menomonie

Menomonie sits at the south end of Lake Menomin, a reservoir on the Red Cedar River, right on the boundary between the Central Plain and the Western Upland. I-94 runs along the south side with exits at Highway 25 and again four miles east, and Highway 25 north is the commercial spine. The grade change between the lake flats and the uplands is real, and so is the difference in how they drain.

Menomonie has the most lopsided housing profile in the valley: nearly a quarter of all its housing went up in the 1990s, more than any other decade by a distance. Those drives are now 25 to 35 years old, which is exactly the age where the original surface has run out but the base is usually still good.

The other half of the picture is UW-Stout. Only 40 percent of the housing is detached single family, the lowest of any town we serve, and a third sits in buildings of five units or more. The city's own comprehensive plan notes that single-family homes near campus have been converted to rentals, which produces parking pressure on drives that were never built for four cars.

Where we work in Menomonie

  • Downtown Historic District

Around Menomonie: Mabel Tainter Theater, UW-Stout, Lake Menomin, Wilson Place Mansion, Wakanda Park.

Same 48-inch frost regime as the rest of western Wisconsin. Thick glacial outwash sand and gravel fills the Red Cedar valley, so the valley floor drains fast and the uplands behave differently again.

From our jobs

Job Photos

Inside a failed catch basin, the collar rusted and the mortar washed out
A failed basin, opened up before the rebuild
Looking down into a catch basin where the mortar has washed out and water stands in the bottom
Mortar washed out, water standing in the structure
A close view of a catch basin edge where the concrete has broken away and undermined the surface around the grate
The edge broken out and the surface undermined
Inside a catch basin, the pipe penetration re-mortared and sealed where it enters the structure
The pipe joint re-mortared inside the structure
A freshly poured square concrete collar around a round storm grate in a striped parking lot
The collar poured back and the grate set to grade
A poured concrete pad around a drain grate at the foot of two loading dock doors, caution tape across the approach
A drain pad poured at a loading dock

All job photos

How a catch basin fails

A catch basin is a block or precast box with a cast frame and grate sitting on top of it. Water is supposed to go through the grate and out the pipe. What actually happens over twenty Wisconsin winters is that water gets into the joint between the frame and the structure, freezes, and lifts. Once that joint opens, every rainfall washes a little of the bedding out from under the surrounding asphalt, and the ring of failure spreads outward from the grate a few inches a year. That's why the symptom you notice is never the drain itself. It's the asphalt around it, and by then the structure underneath has usually been moving for years.

A mismatched concrete patch poured around a storm grate in a cracked school parking lot, marked with a red no symbol

Patching around it

What gets done when the budget is tight

  • Cold patch thrown in the dip, gone by spring
  • Sealer over the low spot, which changes the color and nothing else
  • An overlay that follows the same failing grade back down
  • The hole reappears, slightly wider, every year
A full concrete pad poured around a storm grate set flush to grade in a driveway, coned off, marked with a green check

Rebuilding it

What actually stops it

  • Saw-cut back to sound asphalt, structure exposed
  • Failed block or brick replaced, frame reset to the right grade
  • New concrete collar poured around the frame
  • Asphalt keyed back in at the correct pitch so water actually reaches the grate

The grade is the part people skip. A basin reset an inch high is a basin that never drains again, and the lot ponds somewhere new.

What Decides the Price in Menomonie

It depends almost entirely on what is found once the grate is off, which is why the assessment is free. All three of these cost less than the repaving that follows if the basin is left alone.

Reset

Frame and grate only

Measured on site

  • Structure is sound, the frame has settled or lifted
  • Saw cut, reset to grade, new collar, asphalt tie-in

Partial rebuild

Top courses replaced

Measured on site

  • The common one. Block near the top has deteriorated
  • Rebuild the top of the structure, reset, collar, tie-in

Full replacement

Structure down to the pipe

Measured on site

  • Structure has failed or the pipe connection has gone
  • Deeper excavation, longer, and the only real fix at that point

What moves it: depth, whether the pipe connection is sound, how much asphalt has to come out around it, and whether the lot has to stay open while we work. Multiple basins on one visit come down per basin, because the trip is already paid for.

Reset, rebuild, or replace?

What the symptom usually means

What you can see without lifting the grate, and what it usually turns out to be.

  • A shallow dip around the grate, asphalt still soundUsually a reset. The least expensive fix on this list, and the one that gets left too long.
  • Asphalt broken in a ring around it, water ponds after rainThe common case. Partial rebuild, collar, tie in. One to two days.
  • You can see block or brick loose through the grateDepends how far down it goes. This is the one that needs looking at, not quoting blind.
  • The grate rocks or has dropped below the surface by an inch or moreOften a full rebuild of the upper structure. Sometimes the frame alone. We'll say which.
  • Water backs up out of it, or drains away far slower than it used toThat's usually the pipe connection, not the box. It needs opening up, and no surface repair touches it.
  • A void you can see into, or the ground has dropped beside itMaterial is being washed away underneath. Call it in sooner rather than later; this is the one that turns into a sinkhole and a claim.

Send a photo with the grate visible and we can usually narrow it to two of the three.

How the Work Goes in Menomonie

Excavation, block work, concrete and the asphalt tie-in, in the order they happen.

Look at it with the grate off

Most of what's wrong is invisible from above. We lift the grate, look at the structure and the pipe, and tell you which of the three bands you're in.

Saw cut back to sound asphalt

Clean vertical edges, cut wide enough to reach material that hasn't been undermined. Cutting too tight is why repairs fail at their own seam.

Rebuild and set to grade

Failed courses replaced, frame set so the grate sits slightly below the finished surface. Water has to run to it, which means it can't sit level and definitely can't sit proud.

Concrete collar

Poured around the frame to spread the load off the structure and onto the subgrade. This is the part that stops it happening again in five years.

Asphalt back in, compacted, sealed at the joint

Keyed to the cut, compacted in lifts, and the perimeter joint sealed. Then the grade gets checked with water, not by eye.

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

Questions We Get in Menomonie

What Menomonie calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
We own rental property near campus. Do you work with landlords?
Regularly. Rental drives around UW-Stout carry more vehicles than they were built for and wear accordingly, and a landlord is usually making a maintenance decision rather than a cosmetic one. The estimate prices the cheapest thing that actually works rather than the nicest-looking option, and we can schedule around the summer turnover.
Can the work be done between tenants rather than during the semester?
That's usually the sensible way round it, and it's the most common scheduling conversation we have in Menomonie. Sealer needs the surface clear and about 24 hours before traffic goes back on, which is easy in an empty August week and hard in October. Tell us the turnover dates when you call rather than after the calendar is set.
Does the sandy ground here change what a driveway needs?
It changes what a crack does. The Red Cedar valley sits on thick outwash sand and gravel, which drains fast, so water that gets through the surface keeps moving instead of pooling. That sounds like good news and isn't: moving water takes the fine material out of the base with it, and the crack that looked minor in October can be sitting over a void by spring. Filling early is worth more here than the surface appearance suggests.
How much does catch basin repair cost?
It depends on which of the three jobs it turns out to be, and that cannot be known until the grate comes off: a reset, a partial rebuild, or a full replacement. A reset is the cheapest by a wide margin and a replacement is the most expensive. All three cost less than the repaving that follows if the basin is left alone. The assessment is free and the number is fixed before work starts.
How long does a catch basin repair take, and does the lot have to close?
A basin repair is a small excavation in one corner of the lot, not a resurfacing project. How long the repair takes depends on what we find under the casting, and the bid tells you before we start.
Can you just patch the asphalt around the catch basin instead?
We can, and sometimes that's the right call if the structure is sound and the budget isn't there this year. But if the block has gone, patching buys one season. Which of the two you have is visible once the grate is off.
Do you subcontract the excavation or the concrete?
The excavation, the block work, the collar and the asphalt tie-in are sequenced and priced together, so you are not holding three quotes and hoping the dates line up.
The area around our drain is breaking up. Is that the basin?
Almost always, yes. Catch basins fail outward from the frame joint, so the asphalt around them starts to go before anything looks wrong with the drain. If the broken area is roughly a ring centered on the grate, that's the signature.
Do you do manhole and utility structure work too?
Yes. A manhole in a parking lot fails the same way and gets the same treatment: cut back, reset to grade, collar, tie in.

Get a Free Estimate in Menomonie

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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Everything about catch basin repair, including how the work goes and what changes the price