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Crack Filling and Sealing in Chetek

Crack Filling and Sealing in Chetek, Wisconsin.

Hot rubber crack filling for driveways and lots in Chetek, before the freeze does the expensive part.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 45 minutes north of Eau Claire on Highway 53. Free estimates, and a straight read on whether it needs doing yet.

A web of freshly filled cracks running across a parking lot, the rubber still glossy.
2,169 People in Chetek
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Chetek
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Crack Filling and Sealing Job Looks Like in Chetek

The downtown runs along Second Street on the water, tight lots with shared access, and it carries a summer trade far larger than the winter population. The highway corridor west of town is where the newer commercial surface is.

Seasonality is the thing to plan around here in a way it's not elsewhere. A resort, a bar or a marina lot can't be closed in July, and doesn't need to be open in February. That points work at May or September rather than at the middle of the season, and it means booking early rather than calling when it's already busy.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Chetek

The furthest north we go, so the freeze cycle is the most aggressive we work in. An open crack on a Chetek drive takes more winters per year than one in Eau Claire, in every sense that matters. It's also why light use doesn't protect a lake place: a drive nobody touches from October to May still freezes and thaws dozens of times, and every one of those works the crack a little wider.

The Driveways and Lots in Chetek

Chetek is the far northern edge of what we cover, in Barron County, built on the chain of six lakes that runs through the middle of town. Open water covers most of a square mile inside the city limits, which is why a city of 2,172 has the property profile it does.

Chetek's building peak is the 1980s, later than any other town in the service area, and the reason is the shoreline. Lake lots filled in through the seventies and eighties, and a fifth of the housing dates from that period.

Lake property brings its own driveway problem. A lot of these are long, they run toward water, they get used hard for three months and sit for nine, and a good number were built as seasonal access rather than as year-round drives. That's a different starting point from a subdivision.

Chetek

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

Around Chetek: Chetek chain of lakes, Second Street, Highway 53 corridor.

The furthest north we work, so the season is genuinely shorter at both ends. Surface work here books earlier in the fall than it does down the valley.

From our jobs

Job Photos

The crack crew's trucks and melter working a tree-lined road, road work sign up
The crack crew working a town road
The company flatbed and the yellow crack-seal melter on a road shoulder, two crew in hi-vis working ahead of it
The melter on site, crew working ahead of it

All job photos

Hot rubber vs. cold pour

The stuff in a jug at the hardware store is cold pour. It goes in as a liquid, dries, shrinks, and sits in the crack like a rubber band laid in a trench. It's not bonded to anything. The first hard freeze pulls the crack open, the filler has nothing holding it to the walls, and it lifts out in a strip. Most people have seen this happen and assumed it was a bad batch. Hot-applied rubber goes in at around 400 degrees. At that temperature it's thin enough to run down into the crack instead of bridging it, and hot enough to melt into the asphalt faces on either side. When it cools it has bonded to the walls of the crack, so when the crack moves, the filler moves with it.

Cold pour

The jug from the hardware store, and what a cheap quote uses

  • Sits in the crack rather than bonding to it
  • Shrinks as it cures, leaving a channel down the middle
  • Pulls out in strips after the first hard winter
  • Cheap enough that it gets redone every year, which isn't cheap

Hot-applied rubber

What comes off our kettle

  • Flows to the bottom of the crack at 400 degrees
  • Melts into the asphalt faces and bonds to both walls
  • Stays flexible, so it moves when the crack moves
  • Holds for years, not for one season

This is the one place where the cheaper option isn't a smaller version of the right one. It's a different product doing a different thing.

What Decides the Price in Chetek

Priced by the foot of crack, not by the area of the surface, because that's what actually drives the work. Usually done as part of a sealcoating job, where it costs less than it would on its own.

With a sealcoat job

Driveway

Measured on site

  • Most driveways need some, and it's included up to a point
  • Heavy cracking is quoted separately and said up front

Crack filling alone

Driveway, no sealcoat

Measured on site

  • Worth doing on its own if the surface is otherwise sound

Commercial lot

Per linear foot

Measured on site

  • Depends on crack width, depth and how much routing it needs
  • Most lots are quoted as a lump sum after a walk

Cracks wider than about an inch and a half, or ones that have broken into a network, are past filling. Those get cut out and patched rather than filled with something that will not hold.

How the Work Goes in Chetek

Done before sealer, always: sealer can't bridge an open crack.

Clean the crack out

Blown out with compressed air, vegetation and old failed filler removed. Rubber won't bond to dirt any more than sealer will.

Rout the wide ones

Wide or heavily worked cracks get cut to a consistent reservoir so the filler has a proper shape to sit in. Not every crack needs it; the ones that do are the ones that have already failed once.

Fill hot

Direct-fire kettle, rubber at 400 degrees, wanded into the crack until it's full from the bottom up rather than skinned over at the top.

Squeegee and let it set

Struck off flush or slightly banded over, depending on the surface. Sets hard enough to drive on in under an hour in most conditions.

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

Questions We Get in Chetek

What Chetek calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
We have a lake place. Is it worth sealing a drive we use three months a year?
Usually yes, and for a reason that surprises people: the damage isn't from use, it's from weather. A drive that sits unused all winter still freezes and thaws forty times, and unsealed asphalt takes that badly. Light use doesn't protect it.
When can you do our resort lot without shutting us down in the season?
May or September, and booked ahead. Sealing needs the surface clear and dry, with 24 hours before traffic goes back on, so the calendar is the first thing to settle. What doesn't work is calling in July and needing it done that week.
Our drive is shaded and there's green growth in the surface. Does that matter?
It matters a lot, and it's common on the lake lots here. Moss and algae hold moisture against the asphalt and sit between the surface and anything you put on top of it. Sealer over that doesn't bond, and it lifts in sheets the following spring. It has to come off first, which is work rather than a quick rinse, and it's the step a low bid leaves out.
How long is a lake driveway compared to one in town, and does that change the price?
Often several times longer, which is the main reason a Chetek quote and an Eau Claire quote for the same house look different. A rural or shoreline drive gets measured rather than estimated by eye, so you're getting a number for your drive rather than an average one. The estimate is free, and the number you approve is the number you pay.
How much does crack filling cost?
It is priced by the linear foot of crack rather than by the size of the surface, so a big driveway with four cracks costs less than a small one that has opened up all over. Width matters too: anything wide enough to need routing out first takes longer. On a driveway it is usually included up to a point when it is done with a sealcoat rather than billed on its own.
Why does the temperature of the crack filler matter?
At 400 degrees the rubber is thin enough to reach the bottom of the crack and hot enough to melt into the asphalt on both sides, so it bonds. Cold pour filler can't do either, which is why it lifts out in strips after a winter.
Should I fill cracks before sealcoating or after?
Before, always. Sealer is a thin wear layer and it can't bridge an open crack. Sealing over one changes its color and nothing else, and the crack reappears through the new surface within weeks.
Is there a crack too big to fill?
Yes. Past about an inch and a half, or once cracking has broken into a network of squares, filling won't hold because the surface around it is moving independently. Those areas get cut out and patched instead.
When is the best time of year for crack filling?
Spring or early fall in Chetek and the surrounding area is ideal, because cracks are at a middling width. In high summer they're at their tightest and in deep winter they're at their widest, and filling at either extreme means the filler is working against the movement rather than with it.

Get a Free Estimate in Chetek

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

Send the form and we'll call you back. The estimate is free.

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