Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations dock Building

I am in the process of completing my lake and am now planning on building a dock. i have looked at buying a floating dock but I do not like the way it looks. My favorite dock is the one my friend just had built. It has a wooden substructure of treated wood with decking made out of one of the new decking materials. it also has a storage shed on it for his troling moters and batteries. Half of it is covered. the other half can be used for fishing or sunning. My question is how long will this treated lumber endure under water and is there something better for the substructure? if you have plans or ideas please let me know.

James,
Here's a couple links that might give you some ideas. You didn't say if you wanted to build it yourself or have it built but you can never have too many ideas. I used a Rubbermaid storage unit on my dock to hold extra life preservers and the water toys.

www.tommydocks.com www.connectadock.com

Good luck,
Dan

James,
I, too, recently built a dock, but chose to use oil field drill stem, buried in the ground, with channel iron as the frame. I cut some cedar trees, took them to a local sawmill, and them cut, then screwed them with brass screws, into the sturdy frame. Then, we sealed the cedar. Very nice, and the wood will last 8-10 years. I have seen many docks with wooden structures. They don't last long, compared to drill stem.

James,

To help protect a wooden substructure from the elements, that portion which will be in contact with the water, one option would be to use PVC pipe as a protective sleeve. After installing your posts, slide a piece of PVC pipe over the posts. I've never done this for a dock but I've used this to make bridge supports. Bob Koerber passed along this idea to me a while back.

Russ

Bob i do not know what oil field drill stem is please elaborate. I also do not understand what you did with the cedars.

James,
Oilfield drill stem is 2 7/8" thick walled steel pipe. We drilled 30" holes in the pond bottom, leveled the pipe side to side, in concrete. The pipes stand up straight. Then, my welder welded rectangular shaped metal, called "channel iron" as a frame, to the top of the drill stem pipe, to form the dock frame. So, welded on top of the drill stem steel pipe is a squared metal frame. On top of the frame, we attached wood slats. The wood, rather than buy it from a lumber yard, came from my property. I thought it would be cool to take some of the cedar trees removed from the pond site, take them to a nearby sawmill, and have them cut into 2" boards. They are rough cut, varying widths, with slight variation in thickness, too. But, it made a nice, sturdy dock.
If you would like to come look at it, you are sure welcome to. If you like it, we can hook you up with the welder who built the frame.

i used treated post for a 5' X 25' dock. i liked Bob's idea , PVC schedule 40 and filled with concrete , last forever. fill the pipe 3/4 full , build the frame , then fill to the top.

I just finished my dock out of 4x4 treated posts. I would have used 6x6s, but I was builing it by myself. I buried each one approx 2 feet deep with at least one big bag of quickcrete on each one. It's T shaped with the main walk 5' by 30' and the T on the end 5' by 15'. I plan on using treated 2x6s for the decking when the water level stabalizes. Anybody know if it would be of any benefit to treat the posts with an extra layer of sealant before the pond fills up?

Thank you bob for the information I would like to come and see your dock. As always you are a great help.

Hi James, I used 4 inch diameter PVC pipe to build mine. After setting them in the ground drilling them for the bolts I put a couple of pieces of rebar in them and filled with concrete. The dock is 5 ft by 16 ft and worked out great. You can see some pictures on my homepage.

Bob you have a beautiful pond. I love all of the trees around it.

Thanks James, did you get the dock built yet?

yes i'll try to post some pictures

Bob K,

You recently suggested the 4" PVC pipe method to me for building my dock. I've got the 12 posts installed and concreted into the ground. WOW! what a chore! digging 12 post holes in the hot Texas sun can either kil you or kill you.

I'm waiting for the rains to come and fill the pond. When that happens, I'll install the decking. I don't want to place the decking now and find out later that it's too high or too low.

The only thing I'm doing differently is keeping the posts underneath the deck and not having them come up the sides. I wanted to minimize the amount of PVC pipe showing.

I wonder if sanding the PVC and then spraying it with a dark paint would work long term? I might try that too.

I'll send you some pictures when it's all done.