Читать книгу Building Your Own Dock - Sam Merriam - Страница 17

Consider making your decking into panels that lay and fasten on top of your dock section’s frame. That way, you can reduce the weight significantly when it is time to move the dock section to and from the water. You’ll also find the removable decking handy while working under your dock by moving panels back or out so that everything is reachable from the top side. Another key advantage to this is if you’re on a body of water that could rise significantly from unexpected profuse rain events. In this situation, the deck panels can be taken up quickly, leaving little surface area for the rising water with waves to lift and pound against.

For lightweight portability, consider making your decking into removable panels.

In the north, where docks are annually removed and stored on the shore for winter, wood decking will last much longer if laid flat, supported evenly into dry storage, such as a shed, garage, or under a camp. Leaving wood stacked under the damp evergreens to wick water into its cells, buried under feet of melting snow, or drawing moisture from damp ground will likely reduce the years you could get out of it. Finally, if you plan to re-treat your decking with a wood preservative, applying stains and clear coats should never be done over the water. Docks in the north that get removed after summer can be treated as they get stored on the ground. Otherwise, panels can be removed while the dock is installed and taken to dry ground before applying your preservative.

Removable decking does compromise torsional strength and some of the rigidity you get from permanent decking. You’ll also need to think about the placement of some accessories that utilize permanent decking for proper and safe attachment, such as a tie-off cleat or ladder rails that bolt through the deck. Nevertheless, its benefits are rewarding enough to earn serious consideration by DIYers, and a willingness to work around its inherent compromises. You could opt to build it with removable decking, and if not satisfied after some experience, screw it down permanently. I have had it on my dock for years and couldn’t be more satisfied. In places where I have a cleat or ladder, my decking is screwed in permanently. I then panelize where I can to get the advantage where possible. Typically, my panels are all the same size on all my sections, but where I need permanent boards, my panels on that section are smaller in size. At the end of this chapter you’ll find the plans that I built my sections from. Alter them as you see fit to suit your personal needs for the attachment of permanent deck accessories.

Solid synthetic decking made to resemble wood.