Dock & Piling Cleaning in Delray Beach, FL

A Tropic Isle dock sits in deep, still canal water in a 50-foot shoreline slow zone.

Tropic Isle is about 430 single-family homes on canals dredged starting around 1954, east of Federal Highway and south of Linton Boulevard, with no fixed bridge to the Intracoastal. Seventy years of tides on those canal walls and pilings is a long time. The Marina Historic District between US-1 and the Intracoastal, listed on the National Register in 2014, has older docks still, and cleaning them changes nothing about the structures the district protects. Both neighborhoods sit inside the 50-foot shoreline slow zone that runs from the Boynton marker south to Lake Wyman.

Tropic Isle docks date from the 1950s canal dredging and many stand on their original wooden pilings, so the multi-point inspection after cleaning is where owners learn whether the wood is still wood; a piling found going is wrapped in HDPE or sleeved with a Snap Jacket in place, with no barge in the canal. Marina Historic District docks are older still and protected as part of the district, and cleaning them changes nothing the listing protects. Both neighborhoods sit in the 50-foot shoreline slow zone, so the growth is still-water growth: heavy oysters on the pilings, barnacle on lift hardware and floating-dock wheels.

A photo from the seawall helps the diver bring the right gear. Because Tropic Isle has no fixed bridge, and because the canals are deep the work is done floating rather than standing on the bottom. Marina Historic District docks are older and sometimes a mix of wood and concrete on the same structure; each piling is looked at on its own after the cleaning. The city marina's slips are city property, so a liveaboard there gets the boat cleaned, not the pilings.

Delray Beach docks stand on the Intracoastal Waterway, most of them behind homes in Tropic Isle and the Marina Historic District. ZIP codes 33444 and 33483: 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