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Catch Basin Repair in River Falls

Catch Basin Repair in River Falls, Wisconsin.

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

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 21 Google reviews

About an hour and twenty minutes west of Eau Claire on I-94 and Highway 35. The estimate is free.

A freshly poured square concrete collar finished flush around a storm drain grate in a striped commercial parking lot.
4.7 Google ratingFrom 21 reviews
1-3 days Typical basinDepending on depth
7 days Sinkhole, start to doneA customer's words, not ours

Working in River Falls

Mann Valley was built from scratch, with two and a half miles of sanitary sewer, four and a half miles of water main and 3,900 feet of roadway put in before anything went up on it, so what's underground out there is new. Downtown and around the older industrial park it isn't. A structure that has been moving for twenty years takes the asphalt around it down a little more every winter, and what you see is the ring of broken pavement rather than anything wrong with the grate. A rebuild means the structure, a new collar and the asphalt keyed back in at the right pitch.

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 buried 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 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 structure replaced, frame reset to the right grade
  • New concrete collar poured around the frame
  • Asphalt tied back in at the right pitch so water 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.

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 the structure crumbling 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.

What Decides the Price in River Falls

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. The top of the structure 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.

How the Work Goes in River Falls

Excavation, structure repair, 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

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

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

Questions We Get in River Falls

What River Falls calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
River Falls is off the interstate. Do you still come out here?
Yes, for commercial lots. It's about 63 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and twenty out I-94 and down Highway 35, and the city itself is about five minutes off the interstate. 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 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 we tell 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 structure below 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 structure repair, 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.

The Lots and Surfaces in River Falls

River Falls is a city of about 17,800 straddling the Pierce and St. Croix county line, on the Kinnickinnic River south of the interstate. It's about 63 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and twenty minutes out I-94 and down Highway 35, and the city puts itself five minutes off the interstate and thirty from downtown St. Paul. Highways 29, 35 and 65 all serve it. The University of Wisconsin-River Falls is here, with about 5,300 students.

Four named parks hold the industrial ground. Mann Valley Corporate Park on the northwest side is the biggest inside the city limits, more than 200 acres zoned for office and light industrial with a single 155-acre lot in it. Sterling Ponds Corporate Park has four lots left over 15 acres, Whitetail Ridge Corporate Park has two lots over 12.5 acres with roughly a dozen businesses and an estimated 400 employees already on it, and the older River Falls Industrial Park has a three-acre lot and an area zoned heavy industrial. The Radio Road interchange, built in 2014, puts all of them straight onto Highway 35.

The rest of the commercial surface is the campus and the hospital. UW-River Falls runs about 5,300 students and opened a science and technology center in 2026, the largest construction project in the university's history. Allina Health's River Falls Area Hospital is on East Division Street, with two more clinics in town. River Falls High School is on Cemetery Road with about 1,100 students, and Chippewa Valley Technical College has a branch campus here. Foley United, Interfacial Solutions and Rush River Brewing are among the businesses the city puts on its own site.

Where we work in River Falls

  • Mann Valley Corporate Park
  • Sterling Ponds Corporate Park
  • Whitetail Ridge Corporate Park
  • River Falls Industrial Park
  • The UW-River Falls campus

Around River Falls: The Kinnickinnic River through downtown, Glen Park and the swinging bridge, Hoffman Park, The Falls Theater, The Falcon Center on the UW-River Falls campus.

17,802 people, 2024 Census estimate.

The Pierce County soil survey puts the largest areas of sandy outwash in the valley of the Kinnickinnic, and Waukesha silt loam, a terrace soil laid down as stream terrace and outwash, occurs principally in the township of River Falls. Sand and silt loam don't hold water the same way, and a lot can have both under it.

Get a Free Estimate in River Falls

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 River Falls
  • 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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