I have a dock with no electricity, but would like to get it wired soon. However, my daughter in law is concerned about electrical hazards, especially for their kids.

Any suggestions for how to safely wire the dock? I'd like a light and a way to run electricity to boat battery for recharging.

Make sure that the circuit is fed by a ground fault circuit breaker or a gfci receptacle.

interested in this too. is the answer as simple as GFI plugs? I don't know. i've wanted underwater dock lights but have shied away over electrical shock fears. had an employee go into his mother's pond a few years ago to see why the fountain motor stopped working. he was electrocuted right in front of his granddaughter. they said ants had chewed thru the wiring or something.

Ground fault breakers and receptacles are designed to trip in the mili amp range before you could even feel a shock. Just make sure you get a tester with a gfci mode and check it periodically. They are not very expensive.also just to be totally safe you could turn off the power before entering the water.

cb100 would it add any safety to have 2 GFCI plugs in the line?...that way if one GFCI was bad the other would pick it up? or does it not work that way?

Normally no one would go into the water at my place, but grandkids could fall in or someone could reach down into the water to bring in a fish or retrieve a snagged lure. I definitely don't want any wires in the water, was thinking of maybe having a large reel set up high that I could run wire out to charge boat battery.

If connected to the load side of an upstream GFCI, all receptacles downstream are GFCI protected. More GFCI receptacles downstream at best gain nothing. At worst, they might cause nuisance tripping. I have found GFCI receptacles to be highly reliable devices. When they do fail, in my experience, they won't reset at all. None have failed to trip when they should in my experience.

Run your boat charger from the GFCI receptacle on a substantial length of good outdoor rated extension cord, to keep the receptacle well out of the way of the high water mark. You could put that cord on a reel high above the dock so small children cannot reach it. If the end of the cord drops into the water, the GFCI may trip, depending on the conductivity of the water. Distilled water is nearly non conductive.

John...have patience with me...i am slow.....so if the upstream GFCI is not working properly an extra GFCI that is working properly would gain nothing and not add any protection?

I am no expert, but GFIs that have failed on me kill power down-circuit.

I said I have never known GFCI receptacles to fail to trip. I have had them fail to reset after tripping, but that isn't a safety issue. IMO you will gain nothing by having GFCI receptacles feeding GFCI receptacles downstream except the possibility of more unexplained trips. I have had them trip from a bug crawling into the outlet.

John is correct the first gfci hooks up to the line side and then the rest of the circuit is fed off the load side of the receptacle. So if any of them have current flow to ground it trips the receptacle.

The first outlet away from the breaker or fuse box that is exposed to the outdoors or any concrete floor or wet location should be a GFCI connected to the incoming feed on its line side. It can feed all the other downstream receptacles from its load side. Any outdoor cords should be connected to a GFCI protected outlet.

gotcha ....thanks

Thanks, John.

Glad to help. I don't know much about ponds, but know some about electricity. Worked at the local EMC for 35 years.

Just a note on my experience with GFI recepticles. I put GFI recepticle for my jucuzi style bath tub and had troubles with false triggers. Since it was in an inconvienient location to reset it was unacceptable. What I did was put in a regular recepticle but at the breaker box bought a GFI style breaker (be aware they are wired a little different at the breaker box). No more false trips.

No electrician here, so use info at own risk.

John your info is good. I have 40 years as an electrician retired now but I'm teaching an apprentice program.

Maybe a overkill but I have a gfi breaker in my main box and a gfi receptical in line. Also my dock is a 30 foot metal pontoon boat. Everything on that boat is in line and wired to a RV cord that plugs in at the shore. Anytime I need electricity I simply plug in the rv cord. Otherwise there is never risk of electrical shock. Just what I did.

Honestly, I would not put AC anywhere near a dock, GFI protected or not. In the distant past, cottages we were staying at were quite "rustic" and the GFI circuit didn't work due to a bad cottage ground. Read NONE. The water near the docks got rather stimulating thanks to someone putting a 110VAC sump pump on an extension cord into a leaky metal boat. Us kids thought there were critters in the water attacking us.

Can you get away with low-voltage lighting and products? Similar to garden lighting. Those are usually supplied by a transformer which provides electrical isolation, and the voltages are so low as to not do any harm. The GFI leading to the lighting system would be another level of protection.

Generally it is best practice to not cascade GFI circuits as it can cause false trips or the can combat each other during a tripping event and not allow one to fully trip.

Note that until I got really busy at work, I was working on a lighting solution for water areas which was a solar controller and battery setup. It has timers for dimming, Bluetooth control, water thermometer, and underwater lighting. It was quite safe since no voltage was over 12V. Maybe I should get back to work on it. Maybe when the weather goes to crap again this fall.

i don't like it.....but that's my feeling too liquidsquid
the possible consequences..although remote... are not good
i currently accent light my dock with solar lights
it's cheap and works pretty well for accent lighting,
but not if you want real lighting like to clean a fish



dock solar lights on far right

FWIW, I hired a certified electrician (with experience wiring docks and boat houses) to re-do the power to my main dock and gazebo. The previous property owner had run power when he installed it, but it wasn't working when we moved in. He (the electrician) put in a stub on shore (4x4) and put a GFI outlet and switches to the dock/gazebo power and outlets on the stub. He ran the power lines in rigid conduit from the stub to the dock and gazebo. It's flexible 'kind of' in that he could bend it into the corners he needed to, but very stiff.
I think every pond/dock owner should do what they feel is best, so am not saying everyone needs or even wants to run power. I do advocate for professional installation when feasible (and affordable). I was also blessed with an electrician that has experience around bodies of water and docks.
I personally had it done for lights under the gazebo, and the option of charging a boat battery, as well as adding a 'bug light' at some future point (BoJo type) and maybe some underwater lights, because I think that would be 'cool'. :-)
Lastly, I have also done some amateur wiring in my time, but felt this location warranted an experienced and professional hand.

A couple more ideas to ponder...

For lighting, one of two ways;
* low voltage wiring on the dock - 12 volt LED lights, with the Driver and 110 volt outlet well away from the water.
* solar lights - no wiring needed

The boat charger in a similar way;
* low voltage lines to the boat, with charger and outlet away from the water.

The 110 volt outlet protected from the house with a GFI circuit breaker.