How to Build a Boat Dock

A boat dock, as its name implies, is a place where boats can park. Docks can also provide extra space for lounging or entertaining guests. Whatever your reasons may be, building a boat dock into your waterfront property is easily attainable. You can even build it yourself. All you need is general carpentry skills and a good step-by-step guide on how to put it together.

Required Materials

• 2 X6 or 2 X8 pressure treated lumber
• 4 X 4 wooden posts or metal posts with ready-made brackets
• eye-bolts
• screws
  1. Determine the size and the design of the dock. Docks usually have a long section that extends out from land and a larger square area for lounging. A common deck design would have a 4-foot wide and 12 to 16 feet long section that comes off land. Attached to it is a larger 12 feet square section for people to move around on.
  2. Determine how far out the dock would go so that the boat can have enough water under it to dock.
  3. Decide whether you will build a floating dock or have it built on posts. However, there�s only a slight difference between the two docks as they�re constructed almost the same way.
  1. Build the 4-foot wide x 12 feet long section by laying three 12-foot long 2 X6 boards. Cut the boards 4 feet long and screw them into both ends of the three long boards. Make sure that the boards are evenly spaced by attaching one long board on the end of the 4-foot board and then attaching another on the other end. Then lay the third board in the middle.
  2. Screw floor boards on the top of the frame that you have just constructed. Keep the long boards perpendicular to the long bottom boards.
  3. Do the same procedure for the larger section of the further out section of the dock.
  4. Space the framing boards every 16 inches from each other. These should form a set of parallel boards in a grid where the floor boards will be placed in the same perpendicular manner.
  5. Drive 4 X 4 wooden or metal posts into the soil beneath the water to hold up a free standing dock. These posts should go at the corners of the dock.
  6. Cover the edges of the dock with a bunched up old fire hose to keep the boat from scraping on the side of the dock.

Steps in Planning and Preparation

Steps in Building the Dock

2 Responses to “How to Build a Boat Dock”

1. bobby wilson says:

   December 3, 2009 at 10:45 am

   I am trying to find the matirels and directions on how to build a 12×12 floting doc and atach it to a seawall. I am in spring hill florida. I can’t seem to locait the stirophom to put under the doc
2. admin says:

   December 10, 2009 at 8:39 am

   Dow is the largest manufacturer of Styrofoam billets. You can find them at a lot of vendors, but you might start with the specialists at MarineFoam.com.