Hello All,
Due to the drought, my pond has dropped from around 4.6 surface acres to about 2.9 surface acres. Right now, we are guesstimating that we have access to a little over 1.5 acres of 'dry', formerly bottom, silt and sediment that has accumulated over the last 50 years.
Our Biologist Extraordinaire, CJBS has convinced us that we should use this opportunity to clean out as much of the sediment and silt we possibly can before the water returns to full pool.
We are taking his advice and will be doing that very soon. However, we are also considering putting in some posts/pilings that we will use later as 'guides' for two floating docks.
Given that at full pool we are around 4.6 acres, pond is not spring fed, very little surface winds except during major thunderstorms;little, if any, winter ice; and, with the exception of our current extreme drought conditions, water level has been relatively stable, my questions are:
will 4 ea 6 x 6 pilings suffice for stabilizing/'guiding' a 12 x 12 dock and an 20 x 20 dock with a roof? If not, will 4 ea 8 x 8 do the trick?
We want to do the pilings while they are cleaning out the sediment. Was thinking of using a PTO driven post hole digger. I was think of digging holes 4', inserting the piles and then covering with sakrete/etc. Will this work? Is it too deep? Anything I should be thinking about to minimize leaking around the piles?
What other issues should I be thinking about now before putting in the piles? Again, the intent is to put in just the piles now while we have access to the bottom and then build the docks later when we are closer to full pool.
Any and all comments are encouraged and welcomed.
Warmest regards to all,
Paul
