Dock & Piling Cleaning in Bay Harbor Islands, FL

Indian Creek docks sit in calmer water than the bay side, and calm salt water is where oysters do their best work: they pile onto wooden pilings, eat the wood and hide the deterioration. The diver clears them with cavitation, which is safe on wood, concrete and rubber, then does the multi-point inspection while the piling is visible. Shipworm holes are the thing to find early, because a piling with enough of them snaps.

On the bay side, the water around the Broad Causeway bridge is idle speed, but the open bay still sends chop into the docks and grows barnacles on lift wheels and hydro-hoist lines. East Island condo docks are mostly concrete and should be cleaned every year; West Island docks often have wooden pilings, and those can be wrapped from the mud to 2 feet above high tide or sleeved with a Snap Jacket after the cleaning.

Bay Harbor Islands is 0.6 square miles, about a third of it water, so almost every lot on the West Island (platted as Broadview) backs onto Biscayne Bay or Indian Creek. The East Island, originally called Bay Harbor, holds the business district and the waterfront condos, and its docks are shared structures with dockmasters and boards to keep informed. That is the practical difference between the two islands for us: a West Island dock is one owner and one boat, an East Island dock is a building's worth, and we schedule and report accordingly.

The town has no marina, so every dock we clean here belongs to a homeowner on the West Island or to a condo on the East Island, and the difference matters for scheduling: a single dock is one visit, a condo dock is one visit for the whole structure with the board informed. Indian Creek docks sit in calm water and their wooden pilings are the ones the multi-point inspection most often flags for shipworm bores; bay-side docks near the Broad Causeway take chop. Give us the access details once and the diver works without an owner present.

Bay Harbor Islands docks stand on Biscayne Bay, Indian Creek and the Intracoastal Waterway, most of them behind homes on the West Island and the East Island. ZIP code 33154: no pickaxes, no chisels, inspection included.

Growth hides damage, so the inspection follows the cleaning, while the diver can see the structure.

• Shipworm holes in wood and concrete pilings: enough of them and a piling snaps.
• Oyster damage on wooden pilings, which eats the wood while hiding it.
• Floating-dock wheels and hydro-hoist hydraulic lines, where barnacles cut and jam.
• Whether a wrap or a Snap Jacket sleeve would extend the piling's life.

How often docks and pilings need it. Seawalls and concrete pilings: cleaned annually. In our experience, unwrapped wooden pilings on South Florida canals often need help after 10 to 15 years; a wrap from the mud to 2 ft above high tide adds at least 20 years.

Full dock and piling cleaning guide