Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Product sources Need help repairing floating dock

When I bought the property a couple of years ago, one side of the dock was attached to pipes that had been driven into the shore line. I thought this odd as it is a floating dock. I built a short pier, untethered the dock, and floated it away from shore into position. Then I found out why it wasn’t floating in the first place. The floats had been installed unevenly, so the dock doesn’t sit horizontally on the water.

I have attached a few photos. Here are my issues/problems:
1. The float barrels push up against the underside of the decking so I can’t take the deck off to repair it unless I haul the whole thing onto shore (which I really want to avoid).
2. If there were another row of barrels in the gap closest to shore, I think it would be fine. However, the space without barrels is only 15 ½ inches wide, and all the barrels are 20 inches wide, by 34 inches long. Even if I could find barrels 15 x 34, I would somehow have to force them under water and under the dock into position. I don’t know that this is possible.
3. Perhaps I could cut a Dow floating billet into three sections and force it in the gaps. However, 1 would cost about $100 and shipping another $125, and I’m not sure this would work.
4. I wonder about a tractor tire inner tube, inflated after it is in position.

Any ideas for repair without beaching it?

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Float spacing

What if you stuffed it with big pieces of styrofoam?A friend of mine used to do docks and he once told me they made a special prybar for shoving barrels under the dock.Want me to ask him about more details?

I'm at wits end. Any additional help he might provide would be great. Styrofoam is cheap enough that I could give it a try. Maybe I could make a 10 inch thick "sandwich" with Gorilla glue between layers.

Schroeder, maybe the easiest thing is put a couple L brackets on the end pipes of your pier with holes spaced every couple inches to adjust and support the back end of your dock.

If you found barrels to fit, and could run an air line to the floating dock, you could sink the barrels enough to get them under the dock (by taking out one of the plugs and letting water in) then use the air compressor to fill them back up again.

FWIW, dock builders will give away the old "White" dock foam. Most lakes are required to replace it with the blue foam.