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Essential dock building guide
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An easy-to-build dock with minimal environmental impact
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By Paul Lewis, photos by Roger Yip
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Building a dock like this is a quick and easy project. Expect to take a couple of weekends, while working at a cottage pace
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After hauling my old dock onto dry land last summer, I quickly discovered I needed to replace it. Nothing was salvageable. Rotten, waterlogged timbers and disintegrating foam floats made the dock unstable and dangerous. A muskrat had even taken up residence in one of the floats, adding his signature to the area.
I wanted a dock that had the least amount of environmental impact, which makes the list of options short. I chose cedar over pressure-treated lumber; even though it's a bit more expensive, cedar is light, stable and free of chemicals that can impact the lake.
Good-quality hardware on the key stress points ensures that the dock will have a long life, and I made sure the dock's connection to the land is as narrow as possible-so as not to disturb the shoreline too much. Finishing the dock is optional, and I chose a water-based product made by Sansin that I had heard good things about.
As for the design of the dock itself, the size was kept the same as the old dock. Keeping the overall square footage the same simplifies getting a building permit. The only real requirement for length is that the dock extends into the water deep enough for safe diving and with plenty of depth at the side for docking the boat. The width is best kept in dimensions easily covered by off-the-shelf lumber. My 8'-wide dock is wide enough to be stable without becoming a monster dock. The dock floats I chose accomplish two important things. First, the integrated lumber flanges simplify construction and keep any wood from being in contact with the water. And, second, their polyethylene construction doesn't attract rodents.
Building a dock like this is a quick and easy project. Expect to take a couple of weekends, while working at cottage pace, to complete a dock of this size.
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