Building a dock? Don’t do this!

These are the most common (and costly) mistakes DIY Dock Builders make:

Framing without floats

Measure twice, cut once. A common error DIY’ers make when trying to streamline their build is to complete their dock framing before receiving their floats. This is a big mistake!

Dock float dimensions can vary by up to 2% during the manufacturing process, so if joists or framing are cut based off listed dimensions instead of actual, the floats may be too short for your framed in attachment points. Here come the curse words and re-work…

Underestimating live load

Picture this: You’ve finished building your dock. A nice fire pit, a railing, and some lighting complete the setup. A few weeks later you invite a few friends over to share a beer on the new dock and… the dock is almost under water! The combined weight of your add-ons and friends have the dock about to sink! Here comes the awkward laughter from your friends and relocating the party inside.

Underestimating your buoyancy needs will create massive headaches down the road. Make sure you’re considering parties, events, furniture, or dock add-ons when calculating your freeboard needs.

Overthinking it

Lots of DIY’ers start planning their dream dock only to immediately run into confusion and headaches when deciding float size, freeboard, hardware selection, and countless other topics or questions. A DIY Dock Kit can take the math, planning, and guesswork out of your DIY dock build.

Our assembly guide can further simplify your build with straightforward examples, calculations, and pictures. Be a DIY’er, not a HIY’er (headache-it-yourself-er). Bu-dum-psh..