Dock & Piling Cleaning in North Bay Village, FL

A village dock takes wind chop straight off the bay, and the wheels of a floating dock or a jet ski lift grow a crust that scrapes the hull on every launch. Hydro-hoists on Treasure Island and North Bay Island sit fully in the water, where oysters can cut the hydraulic lines. The diver clears all of it with cavitation, which is safe on wood, concrete, steel and rubber, and then inspects the structure.

Harbor Island is mostly multi-family, so the docks there are shared and the pilings are usually concrete; those should be cleaned every year. On the single-family islands there is still plenty of wood, and a wooden piling with shipworm holes can be wrapped in HDPE from the mud to 2 feet above high tide or sleeved with a Snap Jacket after the cleaning.

Treasure Island's streets are named from Stevenson's novel, and its docks split the way the island does: single-family homes with private docks on the west end and multi-family buildings with shared docks on the east. North Bay Island came out of the bay in 1940 and Harbor Island in the later 1940s, so the oldest docks in the village have been standing in salt water for eight decades. A shared dock on Harbor Island is usually concrete and cleaned as one job; a backyard dock on North Bay Island is more often wood, and the oysters have had longer to work on it.

On North Bay Island and the west end of Treasure Island a dock is one owner's and one boat's, and the diver cleans the pilings and lift, inspects them bare and leaves. On Harbor Island and the east end of Treasure Island the docks are shared, usually concrete, and the association books the whole structure at once; each slip holder's boat can be cleaned in the same visit. Open bay chop puts more barnacle on floating-dock wheels here than in any canal neighborhood, so jet ski owners in the village tend to notice the scraping first. Hydro-hoists that sit fully in the bay get their hydraulic lines checked for oyster damage every time.

North Bay Village docks stand on Biscayne Bay, most of them behind homes on North Bay Island, Harbor Island and Treasure Island. ZIP code 33141: 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