Eau Claire, WI · Northwestern Wisconsin Open now (715) 450-9897

Catch Basin Repair in Woodbury

Catch Basin Repair in Woodbury, Minnesota.

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

4.7 from 21 Google reviews

About an hour and twenty minutes west of Eau Claire on I-94. 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 Woodbury

Woodbury is a mandatory MS4 permittee inside the South Washington Watershed District, which reviews construction erosion control and stormwater design, and the city and the district have run enhanced street sweeping as a stormwater practice. The structures in a private lot drain into that same system. The sign of a failing basin isn't the grate, it's the asphalt breaking up in a ring around it, and by then the structure underneath has been moving for years. Rebuilt means the frame and structure reset to grade, 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. Repairable
  • Asphalt broken in a ring around it, water ponds after rainThe common case. Partial rebuild, collar, tie in. One to two days. Repairable
  • 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. Depends, send a photo
  • 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. Depends, send a photo
  • 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. Needs replacement
  • 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. Needs replacement

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

What Decides the Price in Woodbury

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

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 Woodbury

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.

Questions We Get in Woodbury

What Woodbury calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
How far west do you come for a lot?
Woodbury is about 78 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and twenty minutes straight down I-94, off Exit 250 or Exit 251. For commercial lots we come out. 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 Woodbury

Woodbury is the largest city in Washington County and the seventh largest in Minnesota, about 80,000 people and roughly 78 miles west of Eau Claire on I-94. It comes off the interstate at Exit 250, Radio Drive and Inwood Avenue, and Exit 251, Woodbury Drive. The city's own plan puts it near 88,000 people by 2040.

The retail is concentrated on Radio Drive. Tamarack Village sits right at I-94 and Radio with more than 60 stores, and Woodbury Lakes and CityPlace are next to each other in the north end of the city. M Health Fairview Woodwinds Hospital is on Woodwinds Drive, 86 beds on a 30-acre campus, and M Health Fairview tops the city's employer list ahead of the school district, Target and 3M. The city's own campus is on Valley Creek Road and Washington County's central service and license center is on Woodlane Drive.

The industrial side is newer and it's on the northeast corner. Amazon has a last-mile building under construction in the Northeast Business Park Area, 223,418 square feet of warehouse and sorting, and Woodbury Lakes Business Park is marketed as build-to-suit industrial on I-94 frontage. In 2025 the city issued permits for seven new commercial buildings totaling 563,047 square feet. The METRO Gold Line runs bus rapid transit through Woodbury with three stations, one of them a park-and-ride at Guider Drive and Woodlane Drive.

Where we work in Woodbury

  • Radio Drive
  • Tamarack Village
  • Woodbury Lakes
  • CityPlace
  • The Northeast Business Park Area

Around Woodbury: Tamarack Village at I-94 and Radio Drive, M Health Fairview Woodwinds Hospital on Woodwinds Drive, M Health Fairview Sports Center on Radio Drive, Carver Lake Park, Ojibway Park.

80,596 people, 2024 Census estimate.

MnDOT builds flexible pavement over 30 to 36 inches of frost-free material, and it rates silt as the soil with the highest frost heave potential. It publishes frost and thaw readings from Washington County monitoring sites, and those are what set the spring load limits.

Get a Free Estimate in Woodbury

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 Woodbury
  • 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.

What can we help with?