5 Tips For Removing Your Dock For The Winter Season
Just how important is it to remove your dock before the winter season hits? In a word: extremely! Quite obviously, Canadian winters can be harsh. The combination of subzero temperatures and excess snowfall can cause a lot of damage to a dock that is left out all winter long. As you know, water freezes and melts based on fluctuating weather conditions. The expansion and contraction that results can create pressure that can wreak havoc on docks.
Here are five tips for removing your dock for the winter season:
1. Select an ideal storage spot.
The perfect spot to store your dock, during the winter, is close to the shoreline. You don’t want it in the water, of course, but you don’t want to store your dock too far away from it. This makes both the disassembly and reassembly process much easier. Once you’ve picked your spot, stack each dock piece on top of each other. (Please see tip #3 for more).
Generally speaking, both standing and floating docks are manufactured with corrosion-resistant materials. This makes them able to stand up to snowfall. There’s no need to cover the pieces under a tarp, as a result. A tarp will only serve as cover for animals throughout the winter season.
2. Transport the pieces on wheels.
The pieces of your dock are bound to be quite heavy. In order to both protect yourself from injury and prevent damage to your dock, utilize a wheel kit. By replacing a standing dock’s foot pads with wheel kits, you make dock removal much easier. Instead of having to hoist up heavy sections of the dock piece by piece, you can simply roll your dock pieces in and out.
Get some help from friends too. Naturally, it’s much easier to disassemble, transport and store a dock with assistance.
3. Stack each piece properly.
If you have a standing dock, take the bottom dock piece and flip it over so that it sits on the bottom of your stack. Place wooden boards between the dock and the ground. This helps to prevent the dock from getting dirty or warped. It also protects the grass underneath the dock pieces.
For floating docks, simply stack the pieces on top of each other. The plastic material used to construct these docks help to prevent scratches.
4. Label each dock section.
Remembering the configuration of your dock is an absolute must. When it comes time to reassemble the dock in the spring, you want to make sure you know which piece goes where.
When you take the dock out of the water, label each section in the order that it is to go back in the water. Taking photos of the dock configuration will vastly improve your memory of its assembly.
5. Place flag markers around your dock pieces.
After your dock pieces are stacked neatly in their winter storage space, place flag markers around them. This will help you to easily locate the dock in the event of a major snowfall. More importantly, it will serve as a safety feature. The flags will warn people on snowmobiles or skis to stay clear of the area during the winter.
At DockHinge, we proudly offer a patented, strength rated, innovative dock coupler system. It provides you with a safe and quiet way to easily break down & set up dock sections within minutes! And wonderful alternative to the traditional dock couplers with pins that require you be in the water with hands between the dock pieces.
To learn all about it, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-844-423-1231, email us at sales@dockhinge.com or fill out the form on our Contact Us page!