Pond dock construction

[bitternut]

Been wanting to build a 16' long dock or pier in my pond and since its froze up now would be a good time. I was wondering if anyone had ever used 6x6 or 4x4 pressure treated yellow pine for posts. Not sure how well they would hold up. Any one tried using .60 treated posts?

 

[RNeumann]

If you can do steel I’d do that. The local guys use the excavator bucket to pound them in- you don’t have to dig holes.
The issue with any wood is obviously rot. The rating between manufactures isn’t consistent. So one company’s top of the line coating is the next company’s junk. The only wood I’d buy would be from a known source that does underwater stuff- probably not the local lumber yard and for sure not the local box store.
We see pole barns that have rot after 10 years while others show little rot after 50+ years.
With all that factored in you may end up saving by going with steel.

 

[Rustyiron]

I used Locust posts.......about 20+ years ago and still in use.
I had the advantage of it being a brand new pond and built the dock before it had filled.

 

[ultrarunner]

I have 4x4 .60 posts cemented in 5 gallon buckets for footings and brackets... it was done by the previous owner in 2003

 

[papa4fofox]

I built a dock in salt water using treated southern yellow pine timber posts, 6" x 6", purchased from American Timber and Steel. Their catalog has a lot of info that you may find helpful. A call to their technical staff was also very helpful to determine the appropriate chemical dosage for treatment for my environmental situation. They also can supply all of the hardware you may need to build your dock.

http://site.americantimberandsteel.com/AmericanTimberandSteelCatalog.pdf

 

[square1]

Our dock has over (30) supports sunk in the lake floor. Each support uses off the shelf treated 4x4x8s for legs. It does get taken out each fall and put in each spring so ice isn't a factor. Not sure of it's age. We bought it in 2008 and it had been in service for some time before that.

 

[3Ts]

Steel rusts, Wood rots. It all depends on how you protect it. There are lots of docks with wood pilings, just have to be sure the wood has the right treatment for the application. I agree that the box stores will not have the right stuff, neither will regular lumber stores. You need to find a dealer that supplies lumber for water immersion. i.e. docks, sea walls, bulkheads. Some will sell to homeowners.

 

[Fossil Farm]

When the pond was frozen many years ago, I pounded 4 inch schedule 40 pipes into the pond bottom.
Used a sacrificial 4 inch connector on top so the pipe would not get a direct hit. Once those were in,
sharpened treated 4 x 4's and put them inside the schedule 40. Then did the usual joists across and
the decking. It has held up very well. If I would do it over again today, I would probably go with 6 inch
schedule 40, just because it has a larger diameter and easier to fit the wooden post inside. Of course it would
take longer bolts for the joists, but I think it would be worth it.

The deck is about 12 feet by 16 feet in size with a couple benches. I pounded in 9 pipe sections to create the base.
Meaning 3 per run, that is 3 right, 3 middle and 3 left for the deck structure, spaced equally apart.

 

[EddieWalker]

The house I'm currently working on is having a new dock built. They are using a mini excavator with a flat, vibrating hammer of some kind where the bucket is supposed to be. It's on a pontoon boat. They are using round logs and leaving the ends flat. They line them up, and the excavator drives them into the ground several feet. Then they attach beams across the top, run joists over the beams and then decking, just like building a wood deck.

On another job I saw a group of "good ole boys" build a dock quite differently. They sharpened the ends of the round posts with a chain saw. Then two of them got into one flat bottom row boat, and another two got into another flat bottom boat. They lined up the post between the two boats, and then they all stood up and worked a home made post pounder just like a T post pounder, but a lot bigger. Every one of them where 300 pounds, maybe quite a bit more. They have done this a lot because there was no mistakes, and they all worked together perfectly. They got each post into the ground several feet, maybe three to four feet in places. They probably pout in 50 posts. It was great entertainment to watch while I was working on that house!!!

I'm still not sure how I will build my pond. I've gone back and forth between wood posts or metal posts, or a floating dock. Floating seems like it might be the nicest, but more expensive.

 

[downsizingnow48]

At our previous house in coastal Virginia, we had two docks on a river a mile in from the Chesapeake. Always a lot of dock work going on along the river. The only method I saw used was a trash pump to force water down a length of 2" PVC to make a hole for the pilings. They called that "jetting it in". It was fast, easy, no noise. There were places up and down the coast that sold the pilings, I don't know what the treatment was but they looked like telephone poles.

 

[ultrarunner]

I watched dock pilings going in at Lake Tahoe... they were jetted and it went very fast.

 

[sld]

I built a floating dock on the pond we used to have. It was easy and the benefit is it will go up or down with the water level.

 

[Joe Malovich]

plastic barrels will last forever. Our dock is on a river that freezes every year so we need to pull the dock out of the water on a pontoon boat trailer. Never had a problem with the barrels.

 

[countrybumpkin]

I’m in the process of building two docks , I’m using 4x4x8 posts, may last 2 years or 20. Mine are only going to be 10x14 docks. I’m planning on using 14’ joists with a cross support at 7’ then just 5/4 decking.

Post pics as you go, interesting to see what you come up with.

 

[rbtjr]

Have you thought about putting the dock on floats? We have a 12' x 16' aluminum dock in a pond that is on floats. A 20' x 4' walkway goes out to the dock. The walkway is anchored on the land. Each side of the dock is tethered by a strong galvanized steel cable to anchors on the land. We had this dock installed by a commercial provider but I see on the Internet lots of examples of DIY floating docks.

 

[Deere Dude]

I used 3" galvanized pipe for my little dock. Welded a car wheel on bottom of each for a foot. No rust, no rot.
Just bolt the joists to the right height.

 

[EddieWalker]

then just 5/4 decking.

Be sure to install the 5/4 right next to each other as tightly as you can. In a year you will have a quarter inch gap, and in two years the gap will be over half an inch. Nothing else comes close to shrinking as much as 5/4 decking!!!

 

[countrybumpkin]

Will do , thanks.

 

[bitternut]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Some would work pretty good but not for my situation. The bottom of my pond is hard shale with a thin layer of mucky clay on top. Driving posts by hand would be very difficult because of the shale and washing them in would be not an option for the same reason. Also it would be tough to do since my only water supply is my well that is non operational in the winter for obvious reasons. I could not find any black locust posts but I think I can obtain some larch posts from a local Amish sawmill. I might construct the whole pier from larch.
I ruled out a floating dock because they are unstabel for senior citizens ( not me ) but some of my buddies. My pond only drops about 6" in the dry times so fluctuating level has not been an issue. My spillway has no problem letting out any excess during extreme wet periods.

If what I do does not pan out at least I should end up with a good enough work platform so that I can make improvements in the summer. It would be nice to have a way out of the pond without having to hose off the muck from your feet when you exit. I will post pictures of what I end up with.

 

[rbtjr]

About ruling out the floating dock: In our experience, instability is absolutely not a problem. IMHO, stability would depend entirely on whether or not you had sufficient floatation under the dock.