Living where I do, we don't freeze quite as hard as you do. I have a three year old dock with sixteen 55-gallon blue drums under it. I built it with the intention of not taking it out during the winter. Except through flotation between the joists, the barrels are not secured to the dock.

So far, so good. We typically have 6-12 inches of ice from about mid-December to late February or early March. The dock is secured to land via a 16-foot walk-way tied to 18-inch diameter, by about 40-inch deep, concrete anchors (bollards) that allow a fair amount of vertical and horizontal movement using gatepost hardware.

Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, we had very similar swimming rafts that we put in each spring, and removed each autumn. It was long enough ago that the barrels were 55 gallon steel drums. Using today's plastic drums, I'm not sure I'd take them out, except in waters where there can be a significant ice floe -- such as in lakes of several hundred acres.

Ken

Subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine

Peculiar Friends are Better than No Friends at All!