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Crack Filling and Sealing in Tomah

Crack Filling and Sealing in Tomah, Wisconsin.

Hot rubber crack filling for parking lots in Tomah. Routed where it needs it, filled at 400 degrees, priced by the foot of crack rather than by the acre.

Get a Free Estimate Call (715) 450-9897

4.7 from 21 Google reviews

About an hour and fifteen minutes southeast of Eau Claire on I-94 and I-90. The estimate is free.

A web of freshly filled cracks running across a parking lot, the rubber still glossy.
4.7 Google ratingFrom 21 reviews
400°F Applied atDirect-fire rubber
9% Water expandsEvery time it freezes

Working in Tomah

A crack in a car lot opens with the frost. A crack in a truck lane opens with the frost and then gets worked wider every time a loaded trailer rolls across it, which is why the yards around the plants and the distribution buildings show it first. Routing gives the rubber a clean wall to grab, and hot pour at 400 degrees stays flexible through the winter instead of pulling loose. Spring and early fall are when the cracks sit at a width worth working on.

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 Tomah

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.

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 Tomah

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 the last of the sealcoating season now · Call (715) 450-9897

Questions We Get in Tomah

What Tomah calls us about, answered straight.

More questions answered
How far southeast do you come?
Tomah is about 81 miles from Eau Claire, an hour and fifteen minutes down I-94 and then west on I-90, and for commercial lots we come. 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 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 Tomah 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.

The Lots and Surfaces in Tomah

Tomah is in Monroe County, a city of about 9,600 at the point where I-90 and I-94 divide, and that split is most of the reason the town looks the way it does. It's 81 miles from Eau Claire, about an hour and fifteen minutes, and 40 miles east of La Crosse. Exit 43 off I-90 is US 12 and Highway 16, and Highways 21 and 131 come through as well.

Freight is why the lots here are big. The city names Cardinal IG and Cardinal TG, Toro, Exopack, USEMCO, Meca Sportswear, Mars Pet Care and a Walmart distribution center among its employers, along with local and statewide trucking firms, and says outright that distribution companies locate in Tomah because the two interstates divide there. Ocean Spray's plant runs three lines and turns out 31 million pounds of sweetened dried cranberries and concentrate a year. Monroe County lists three business properties in the city, I-90 Corridor Land, Meadows Park and Forward Tomah Land, most of them inside tax increment districts.

The largest single campus is the Tomah VA Medical Center on East Veterans Street, 174 acres and 266 beds serving veterans across 16 counties in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Tomah Health, Gundersen and a Mayo clinic are also in town, the Walmart Supercenter is on West McCoy Boulevard a minute off the interstate, and the school district runs eight elementary schools, a middle school and the high school on Lincoln Avenue. Western Technical College has a campus on East Milwaukee Street, and Tomah sits between Fort McCoy and Volk Field.

Where we work in Tomah

  • I-90 Corridor Land
  • Meadows Park
  • Forward Tomah Land
  • West McCoy Boulevard
  • The I-90 and I-94 split

Around Tomah: Tomah VA Medical Center on East Veterans Street, Lake Tomah, The point where I-90 and I-94 divide, The Tomah Amtrak stop, The old Tomah Post Office.

9,574 people, 2024 Census estimate.

Monroe County is on the Driftless side of the state, the part the glaciers went around.

Get a Free Estimate in Tomah

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 Tomah
  • 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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Other Work We Do in Tomah

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Everything about crack filling and sealing, including how the work goes and what changes the price