Dock & Piling Cleaning in Hollywood, FL

Hollywood Lakes is the city's oldest neighborhood, and some of its docks are old too, with wooden pilings that oysters have been working on for decades. Oysters eat the wood while hiding the damage.

Harbor Islands docks on ocean-access canals see more current and more boat traffic, and their floating docks and jet ski lifts grow barnacles on the wheels that scrape a hull at every launch.

Hollywood Lakes, east of US 1 between Washington and Johnson Streets, was built around North Lake and South Lake in the 1920s, and its docks are among the oldest in Broward. Part of Port Everglades sits inside the city's north end, so commercial traffic is never far, but the lakes themselves are quiet water. A Hollywood Lakes dock on wooden pilings from the neighborhood's early decades is the classic case for a Snap Jacket: a sleeve poured around the piling in place, dock untouched, no barge on the lake.

A Hollywood Lakes dock is often the oldest structure on the lot, built when the yacht basins were new, and the practical question is whether its wooden pilings are still wood inside. The diver cleans them, checks each one for shipworm bores and soft spots, and tells the owner which can be wrapped and which need a Snap Jacket sleeve poured in place; the lake stays quiet and no barge is involved. Harbor Islands docks on the ocean-access canals are newer and busier, with lifts and floating docks whose wheels crust up with barnacle from the current, and the same visit clears them.

Lake docks can be worked at any hour; Harbor Islands docks get a call ahead and a text right before the diver arrives, so the gate is expecting him. Hollywood Marina's slips and West Lake Park's ramp docks are the city's and the county's.

Hollywood docks stand on the Intracoastal Waterway, North Lake, South Lake and West Lake, most of them behind homes in Hollywood Lakes and Harbor Islands, and on Hollywood Beach. ZIP codes 33019 and 33020: 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