Here's What Matters:
Don’t cut corners. Cheap hardware bends and rusts, undersized floats sink, and missing components twist your frame. Spend a little more up front, and you’ll have a dock that lasts decades instead of seasons.
Building your own dock is an awesome project — it’s rewarding, cost-effective, and gets you closer to the water in the best way possible. But some shortcuts that look like “savings” during construction can lead to expensive repairs (or complete rebuilds) just a few years later.
Here are the top three corner-cutting mistakes we see most often — and how to avoid them.
1. Using Cheap or Inadequate Hardware
“If you can’t bend it, it’s strong enough,” right? Not even close.
The wood in your dock isn’t designed to carry the structural load on its own — the hardware takes the brunt of the force. When someone walks on your dock, that 200-pound person can easily translate into hundreds of pounds of torque and lateral force on your bolts and brackets.
Cheaper hardware kits often skip essential pieces like inside corner brackets, which are specifically designed to maintain the dock’s shape under stress. Some kits try to replace these with outside corners and a couple of backer plates — and that’s a recipe for warping or twisting in just a few seasons.
If you want your dock to stay square, solid, and safe, invest in quality dock hardware designed for real loads, not just looks. Shop our hardware options here.
2. Skimping on Floats (or Choosing the Wrong Kind)
Since most floats are black, people assume they’re mostly the same — but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Eagle Floats are rotationally molded, foam-filled, and built to last. Compare that to old-school barrels or thin-walled floats, which can puncture or lose buoyancy over time. We’ve written entire guides on why Eagle Floats outperform barrels — check them out!
Another common mistake? Going too shallow. Many DIY builders underestimate the total load on their dock, forgetting to include live load — the people, furniture, and gear that come later. Without enough buoyancy, your dock sits too low, and you’ll lose precious freeboard (the part of the float above the water).
When that happens, waves start slapping the decking, water creeps up between boards, and your lumber pays the price. Always leave room for extra weight and freeboard — the day will come when you’re glad you did.
3. Leaving Out Key Components
This one hurts to see because it’s so avoidable.
We’ve seen builds where people skip stringers, use too few joists, or leave out “non-essential” brackets to save a few bucks. The dock may float fine for a while, but as soon as stress builds up — a few storms, heavy foot traffic, or winter freeze-thaw cycles — the whole structure starts to twist, shift, and sag.
Remember: the dock frame works as a system. Each piece of hardware and every board plays a role in distributing load and preventing failure. Missing even one structural element can throw off the entire balance.
For more guidance or to make sure your DIY build starts off right, contact us here.