Floating Dock Build?

[IDBoating]

That's true, but "over time" is measured in something like 20+ years. That's why they use cedar, it's far more impervious to waterlogging than other woods. So it's not like you'll have to do something about it anytime soon!

I've seen and tried those plastic-enclosed float boxes. I love their basically infinite life, but I dislike them because 1) they are expensive, much more than cedar logs; 2) they are easier to damage than logs [if you nick a log or scrape it on the lake bottom due to changing water levels no biggie, but if you pierce or wear through one of those boxes....]; and 3) they don't have the sheer MASS of logs. This last one really impacts how the dock feels in the water when people walk on it. With a big, massive log dock it feels like a solid platform. With the enclosed or blue foam floats, the reduced mass allows the dock to "bounce around" when people are on it. I like the solid feel of the more massive dock, but YMMY.

[Ruger761]

If you haven't already done so, better check what is allowed on your lake. A few years back a new guy took over the Corp office at our lake and he change a lot of rules on new dock requirements.

[BlackoutATX]

If you don't mind sharing, roughly what was the cost for how much dock? I never seem to Here the prices of the floating ones.

Price from Tiger Docks was about 28k. This was for a 4 x 20 gangway, 10 x 24 covered boat slip with a 12' wide uncovered side, and concrete decking.
The EZ dock was about 22k. 3 x 20 aluminum gangway, 5 80" x 10' dock sections, and all the required hardware to set/anchor.

You may want to call Kyle Spillar @ Spillar boat docks, he may have something preowned or a fixer upper you could take on, I know I've seen a few over at his staging area past Pace Bend. You may check with other local builders as well. You may find something on the cheap.

I will definitely check this out.

We built a replacement section for our dock. Found a guy with cedar trees on his property, paid him some cash, he felled and limbed them. We trailered them to our lake, dropped them in the water at the boat ramp, and my wife towed them to our house with our boat. From there it was simply some work with a chainsaw, some cedar 6x6's and 2x4's, some galvanized hardware, and topping it off with Trex decking (no splinters, no treating, no refinishing). Worked perfectly and was a great family project. My then-5YO son drove a lot of the screws with a drill motor and carried lots of cut cedar from the miter saw to the dock. This was almost 10 years ago and it's rock solid today.

We also have the cable and anchor system you mentioned. Just replaced the cable a few days ago. I'm an open water certified diver but a friend has a drysuit, so I had him handle swapping out the cable connection at the anchor while I did everything else. Absolutely painless. The old cable had frayed completely through and the dock was only being held in place by the plastic core in the cable {yikes}. We used 6x19 1/2in fiber core galvanized cable as the replacement, $0.67/foot, very reasonable.

Don't be afraid to do your own dock work. You don't even need "kits". It's just woodworking, and not even precision woodworking... you're not building a piano!

I've recently discovered one of the largest dock supply depots in the US is right up the road from me. So I'm leaning more to just tackling this from scratch. When I really break everything down, I don't think I even need a kit.

If you haven't already done so, better check what is allowed on your lake. A few years back a new guy took over the Corp office at our lake and he change a lot of rules on new dock requirements.

Our property is grandfathered in. Thank god.

[IDBoating]

Our property is grandfathered in. Thank god.

Bring "grandfathered in" is no guarantee of anything, as we painfully found out a few years ago when our boathouse (on the beach) was crushed by falling ice. Called the county, they assured us we were grandfathered in, didn't need a building permit, didn't need to see photos or plans, didn't need to inspect, yada yada yada. Started building a nice strong replacement, got 14 yards of rebar reinforced concrete footings and foundations in the ground, and THEN they posted our property because we "weren't allowed to build within 25 feet of the waterline". (We were on the EXACT same spot as before with a REDUCED total footprint, and had before-and-after photos to prove it.) They wanted us to remove the new concrete BY HAND ("you are not permitted to use powered tools of any kind near the water"), file a "remediation plan" that they in their tender mercies would have to approve, and then hire an approved horticultural firm to repopulate the area with native species. All on ground that we "own" and pay taxes on.

Took four weeks of wrangling with attorneys on both sides until I found a way to use their own county statues against them. Boy, were they angry when I hoisted them on their own petard. They didn't even want to give me something in writing saying it was OK for me to proceed. I've never felt colder stares than I got as I walked out of there for the last time. These people believe your property is THEIR property, period. (And they're not wrong, either... if you want to know who really owns your property, stop paying property taxes and see what happens.)

Moral of the story: Anonymously confirm what is PRESENTLY allowed around your body of water. And then, frankly, do the work off-hours and in bad weather so you don't have a lot of lookie-loos around. In our case, we were "anonymously" reported by somebody over the weekend. I suspect once the county got a "report" they were stuck having to follow up. Without that "report" things probably would have been fine since I had gotten their approval ahead of time. Keep things low key.

[BlackoutATX]

Bring "grandfathered in" is no guarantee of anything, as we painfully found out a few years ago when our boathouse (on the beach) was crushed by falling ice. Called the county, they assured us we were grandfathered in, didn't need a building permit, didn't need to see photos or plans, didn't need to inspect, yada yada yada. Started building a nice strong replacement, got 14 yards of rebar reinforced concrete footings and foundations in the ground, and THEN they posted our property because we "weren't allowed to build within 25 feet of the waterline". (We were on the EXACT same spot as before with a REDUCED total footprint, and had before-and-after photos to prove it.) They wanted us to remove the new concrete BY HAND ("you are not permitted to use powered tools of any kind near the water"), file a "remediation plan" that they in their tender mercies would have to approve, and then hire an approved horticultural firm to repopulate the area with native species. All on ground that we "own" and pay taxes on.

Took four weeks of wrangling with attorneys on both sides until I found a way to use their own county statues against them. Boy, were they angry when I hoisted them on their own petard. They didn't even want to give me something in writing saying it was OK for me to proceed. I've never felt colder stares than I got as I walked out of there for the last time. These people believe your property is THEIR property, period. (And they're not wrong, either... if you want to know who really owns your property, stop paying property taxes and see what happens.)

Moral of the story: Anonymously confirm what is PRESENTLY allowed around your body of water. And then, frankly, do the work off-hours and in bad weather so you don't have a lot of lookie-loos around. In our case, we were "anonymously" reported by somebody over the weekend. I suspect once the county got a "report" they were stuck having to follow up. Without that "report" things probably would have been fine since I had gotten their approval ahead of time. Keep things low key.

That sounds horrible. The "anonymously reported" part especially gets under my skin. I don't understand people who do this.

Our area, and more specifically the properties around a local marina here, already fought it out legally. So when I say we are "grandfathered in", I mean we have all the necessary documents to go ahead. But I have dealt with many county officials before. Definitely not the most fun of times.

[IDBoating]

That sounds horrible. The "anonymously reported" part especially gets under my skin. I don't understand people who do this.

And they wouldn't tell me who it was, either. "That would violate our reporting system." I was tempted to remind them of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. {grin} I wonder which would have been more important to them... the thrill of preventing me from doing what I was legally entitled to do, or maintaining the anonymity of their informant?