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Crack Filling and Sealing in Lake Hallie

Crack Filling and Sealing in Lake Hallie, Wisconsin.

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

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 18 Google reviews

About 10 minutes from Eau Claire. 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.
7,349 People in Lake Hallie
4.7 Google ratingFrom 18 reviews
2-3 yrs Reseal cycleIn Lake Hallie
400°F Crack fillerDirect-fire rubber

What a Crack Filling and Sealing Job Looks Like in Lake Hallie

Lake Hallie is the clearest example in the whole area of a town hitting a maintenance milestone together. A driveway laid in 2004 has now been through twenty winters. If it has never been sealed, the surface is spent but the base underneath is almost certainly sound, because it was built to a modern subdivision standard rather than thrown down in the 1950s.

That's the best-value job in this trade, and there are hundreds of them here. It is also why we would rather quote a whole street than one drive: neighbors on a 2000s cul-de-sac are usually all due in the same season, and doing several at once takes the trip cost out of each one.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Lake Hallie

Twenty-year-old subdivision drives crack at predictable places: the cold joint down the middle where the paver made two passes, and the edges where the asphalt has nothing holding it. Hot rubber into those now, before the first winter opens them properly, is the cheapest work in this trade. Sandy river-valley subgrade is the reason it matters more here than the crack's width suggests, because once water is through the surface it moves rather than sits.

The Driveways and Lots in Lake Hallie

Lake Hallie sits between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls at the junction of US 53 and Highway 29, with the Chippewa River along its western edge and the regional airport on its southern border. The lake itself is an oxbow, a piece of the river's old course. The village only incorporated in 2003, which is why so much of it feels, and is, new.

The most suburban stock in the valley and the youngest. Over 42 percent of Lake Hallie's housing was built in 2000 or later, the single largest cohort being the 2000s at just under a quarter of everything. Fewer than four percent predates 1940.

It's also overwhelmingly detached single family, close to 69 percent, with almost no large apartment stock. What that means on the ground is a town full of wide, modern, two-and-three-car driveways that were all poured within a few years of each other and are now arriving at the same decision at the same time.

Lake Hallie

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

Around Lake Hallie: Hallie Ball Park, Peace Memorial Park, Old Abe State Trail, Lake Hallie, Chippewa Valley Regional Airport.

Same freeze and 48-inch footing regime as the neighboring cities. The village sits on Chippewa River valley outwash, so the ground drains quickly, and the newer subdivisions were generally graded properly when they were built.

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 Lake Hallie

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 Lake Hallie

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 Lake Hallie

What Lake Hallie calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
Our driveway went in when the subdivision was built around 2005. What does it need?
Almost certainly sealing, and probably crack filling first. A drive of that age built to subdivision standard has a sound base and a surface that has simply run out of wear layer. That's the cheapest possible fix and it buys another decade.
Several of us on the street want ours done. Is there a discount?
Worth asking about. Most of the cost of a small job is getting the crew and the equipment there, so tell us when you call if several of you want it done the same week. Lake Hallie is the town where this comes up most, because whole cul-de-sacs were built in the same year.
There's a crack straight down the middle of our driveway. Is that a defect?
No, and it's the most common thing we get asked about here. A drive wide enough to need two paver passes has a cold joint down the middle where the two met, and after fifteen or twenty winters that joint opens. It isn't bad workmanship and it isn't a base failure. Hot rubber into it before it widens is the cheapest work in this trade.
Is our village drive different from one in Chippewa Falls or Eau Claire?
Usually yes, and in your favour. Over 40 percent of Lake Hallie's housing went up after 2000 and nearly seven homes in ten are detached single family, so the typical drive here is wide, modern and sitting on a base built to subdivision standard. In the older cities we spend more of the estimate working out whether the base is still there. Here that question usually answers itself.
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 Lake Hallie 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 Lake Hallie

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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