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Catch Basin Repair in Strum

Catch Basin Repair in Strum, Wisconsin.

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

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4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 25 minutes southeast of Eau Claire. 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.
1,068 People in Strum
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Strum
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Catch Basin Repair Job Looks Like in Strum

For a village this size Strum has an unusual amount of commercial surface, and it's spread across five streets rather than concentrated on one.

Fifth Avenue North is the retail spine: the grocery, the bank, the post office, the dentist, and the telephone cooperative that serves twenty-five communities from a building here. Fifth Avenue South carries the village hall and the library. Maple Street is where the industry actually is, a millwork plant and the co-op agronomy site, and it's worth naming precisely because Strum has no industrial park to point at.

The largest single parking demand in the village is the school campus on Highway 10. Eleva-Strum consolidated into one building here, so elementary, middle and high all share one site, and any work on it happens inside the summer window or not at all.

Catch Basin Repair specifically in Strum

Commercial structures here sit mostly along Fifth Avenue and out on Highway 10. The grade in and around the village is genuine, so a basin set even slightly wrong stops draining and the lot finds somewhere new to pond.

The Driveways and Lots in Strum

Strum sits on the Buffalo River in Trempealeau County with Crystal Lake on its edge and US Highway 10 running through as the main route. The Buffalo River State Trail, thirty-six miles of old railroad corridor between Mondovi and Fairchild, passes through the village. Rolling hills in open farm country, and unusually for this area, unglaciated ground.

A village of about 1,100 on a compact grid, with the older stock close to Fifth Avenue and newer building out toward Crystal Lake. Drives are short in the core and get considerably longer as soon as you leave it.

The Crystal Lake end is its own thing. A campground and a golf course sit out on Crystal Lake Drive, and the surfaces there are seasonal: heavy use for five months and empty for the rest, which wears differently from a driveway used every day of the year.

Strum

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

Around Strum: Crystal Lake, Woodland Park, Crystal Lake Park, Buffalo River State Trail, Buffalo River.

Standard 48-inch frost depth. The important local difference is that Trempealeau County is unglaciated, so instead of the sorted sand and gravel outwash we work in up the Chippewa valley, the subgrade here's residual soil over bedrock. It holds water differently, and a drive that ponds in Strum is usually telling you something about grade rather than about drainage.

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 Strum

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 Strum

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 Strum

What Strum calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
Is Strum inside your area for a single driveway?
Yes. It's about twenty-five minutes and we work down that way along Highway 10 regularly. As anywhere at that distance, two or three drives on the same street in one visit costs each of you noticeably less than one on its own.
Water stands in one spot on our driveway. Is that a drainage problem?
Usually it is a grade problem here rather than a drainage one, and Strum is the place where that distinction matters. Trempealeau County is unglaciated, so instead of the sorted sand and gravel we work in up the Chippewa valley, the ground under a Strum drive is residual soil over bedrock. It holds water differently. A drive that ponds here is normally telling you where the surface falls, not that something below it has stopped working.
Does the ground here really behave differently to Eau Claire?
It does, and it is the one thing worth knowing about pavement in Strum. Trempealeau County is unglaciated, so instead of the sorted sand and gravel we work in up the Chippewa valley, what is under a drive here is residual soil sitting on bedrock. It holds water differently and it drains slower, which changes where a surface fails and how a base gets rebuilt. A repair specified for a lot in town is not automatically the right repair out here.
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 Strum

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

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