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Crack Filling and Sealing in Strum

Crack Filling and Sealing in Strum, Wisconsin.

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

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

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 web of freshly filled cracks running across a parking lot, the rubber still glossy.
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 Crack Filling and Sealing 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.

Crack Filling and Sealing specifically in Strum

Unglaciated ground here means residual soil over bedrock rather than the sorted outwash we work in up the Chippewa valley. Water moves through it more slowly, so a crack that opens tends to stay wet longer, and hot rubber before the freeze matters more than it would on sand.

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

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 Strum

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 Strum

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 Strum

What Strum calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
We run a seasonal business out at Crystal Lake. When should the lot be done?
Either side of your season rather than through it. Sealer wants warm pavement and a dry cure, so late spring before you open or early fall after you close both work, and both beat trying to seal around campers in July. Talk to us in the winter and we'll book the slot.
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.
The campground surface only gets used five months. Does it still need sealing?
Yes, and for a reason that surprises people: the damage is not from use, it is from weather. A surface that sits empty from October to April still freezes and thaws dozens of times over that winter, and unsealed asphalt takes that badly whether anybody drove on it or not. The advantage a seasonal surface has is scheduling: there is a real window either side of the season when the work is easy to fit in.
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 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 Strum 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 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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