floating · piling · pipe
Enter the site — depth at low and high water, bottom, exposure, and which water you are on. Get the dock in 3D over real water, a complete priced takeoff down to the float drums, and a branded proposal with the permitting disclosure already written, naming your waterway authority wherever we hold its published rules.
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Live 3D — drag to orbit, or press Below water to read the float drums against the bed. Floating, piling and pipe, over the site's own water depth. No signup.
There is no national dock code. So we name who governs your water — and where every number came from.
A deck has the IRC and a published span table. A dock has no national standard at all, which is why dock software can print any number it likes and never be wrong out loud. Ours names the document and the section where one exists, names the manufacturer where the practice is theirs, and says plainly where nothing is published — pile embedment, anchor spacing, pipe-leg and frame cross-spacing, and the dead-load splits — so those get reviewed instead of trusted.
Water depth at low and high water, bottom type, exposure — the takeoff starts from the site, because on the water the site IS the design constraint.
Floating (float drums + anchoring), fixed on driven pilings (bents + embedment by bottom), and pipe / roll-in (adjustable legs, seasonal removal).
Float count comes from the dock’s own weight riding no deeper than 45% of the drum, floored at the published residential minimum — and catalog buoyancy is credited at that depth, not at the full-submersion rating printed on the spec sheet.
28–35 psf band · Dock Builders Supply
The dock rendered over your site’s water depth — orbit it and show the customer their floats, pilings and gangway to scale, before anything is ordered.
Floats, pilings, pipe legs, frame, decking, cleats, bumpers, connector kits, anchor kits, gangway — priced, editable line by line, CSV-exportable.
Floats that would ground at low water, pipe docks past stable depth, gangways too steep for the seasonal swing, deadweight anchors in muck — flagged while you are still quoting, not after the barge is on site.
DOCK-BP-* · tier named on every flag
Pick the state and the kind of water and the estimator names the authority and checks the dock against its dimensional caps — width, footprint, how far out you may go. Where we hold no verified rules for your water it says so and tells you who to ask, because a cap we cannot cite is worse than no cap.
Wisconsin DNR · WDFW · FDEP · NYSDEC · MnDNR · TVA
site checks
These are the checks as the engine actually writes them. Each one names its rung, and each one comes with the fix — because a warning without a way forward just stalls the quote.
Only 1.5 ft at low water — documented manufacturer practice (Tier 3, EZ Dock: 2–3 ft minimum) wants ~2.5 ft so floats stay off the bottom, and some states prohibit float grounding outright (Tier 1, WA WAC 220-660-140).
What to do: Consider a pipe dock in the shallow span, or extend the run to deeper water.
9 ft at high water — documented manufacturer practice (Tier 3, DockinaBox: pipe docks belong in water under 8 ft) is exceeded past our conservative 6 ft limit; the engine won't size a pipe dock deeper.
What to do: Switch the deep-water end to floating or piling sections.
4 ft gangway over 2 ft of water-level travel is steeper than the 3:1 slope CA DBW 2005 §F2.9 holds at or above 0.0 MLLW (coastal, §F2.9.1) and for at least 90% of the time inland (§F2.9.2) — the Tier 2 threshold this engine checks. §F2.9 does publish a 2½:1 relaxation, but only BELOW 0.0 MLLW or for no more than 10% of the time, and neither can be evaluated from a hand-entered seasonal high and low.
What to do: Use at least 6 ft of gangway (≥3× the level variation), or have a marine contractor size it against measured water-level data for your site.
Open exposure — wind and wave loads will work the anchoring hard. Marina design guidance (Tier 2, CA DBW 2005 §C2.4.1) designs for ≥15 psf wind; sheltered-water rules of thumb no longer apply.
What to do: Add anchor kits, consider wave attenuation or a more sheltered layout — and have a marine engineer review the anchoring.
Muck bottom holds deadweight anchors poorly (trade practice, no published standard — verify anchoring with your marine contractor).
What to do: Upsize deadweights or switch to helical/auger anchors.
Rock bottom — piles must be pinned/socketed rather than driven (trade practice, no published standard — verify the anchorage detail with your marine contractor).
What to do: Budget for rock anchoring hardware and drilling time.
Piling docks stay in year-round — ice sheets can jack unprotected piles (trade practice, no published standard — verify ice conditions with your marine contractor).
What to do: Confirm ice conditions; consider pipe or floating sections where ice-out is required.
Wisconsin DNR caps any portion of the pier or wharf, walkway included at 6 ft (DNR Pier Planner 2026 — "What Are the Dimensions of an Exempt Pier or Wharf?"); this dock’s section 1 is 8 ft. Over that line the dock is not exempt — it becomes a permit conversation with Wisconsin DNR, not a violation.
What to do: Either bring section 1 to 6 ft or take the wider design to Wisconsin DNR Waterway Protection — your county water management specialist. We do not tell you that you are permitted — that word belongs to the agency.
Tennessee Valley Authority caps over-water footprint at 1,000 sq ft (18 CFR 1304.204); this dock is 1,248 sq ft counting sections and gangway. That is a ceiling in the rule, so the dock does not get approved as drawn — take it to Tennessee Valley Authority before you quote it.
What to do: Reduce the over-water area or take the design to TVA Section 26a permitting, and the reservoir’s land-management office ahead of the quote.
Tennessee Valley Authority holds a dock to 150 ft from shore, or ⅓ of the waterway, whichever is less (18 CFR 1304.204); this one reaches 180 ft counting the gangway. That is a ceiling in the rule, so the dock does not get approved as drawn — take it to Tennessee Valley Authority before you quote it.
What to do: Shorten the run, or take the reach to TVA Section 26a permitting, and the reservoir’s land-management office. The ⅓-of-waterway test also needs the channel width, which we do not hold.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife prohibits floats grounding out at any water level (WAC 220-660-140). A floating dock that touches bottom at extreme low water is a regulatory problem here, not the nuisance it is elsewhere — your entered low-water depth is 3 ft.
What to do: Confirm the depth at your lowest recorded water, not seasonal low, and raise it with WDFW Habitat Biologist for your county (Hydraulic Project Approval) if the floats could touch.
No state or water body recorded, so no dimensional cap has been checked on this dock. There is no national dock code, so the caps that govern width, footprint and reach come from your waterway authority — and we only publish caps we have verified against the agency’s own document.
What to do: Tell us the state and the water and we will check the dimensional caps we have on file (5 states plus TVA reservoirs today). Name your U.S. Army Corps district (Section 10 / 404), your state waterway agency, and your local shoreline zoning office before you quote — and if this is a TVA or Corps reservoir, say so, because the reservoir operator’s rules govern there.
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Dock type, sections, gangway, water depths, bottom, exposure. Live takeoff updates as you type.
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The dock over the real water depth — floats, pilings and shoreline drawn to scale.
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Priced takeoff to branded PDF with site conditions and permitting disclosure built in.
Structural quantities follow published guidelines and documented practice for light-duty residential docks, and are fully editable — your engineering judgment, and the authority that governs your water, always has the last word.
Every plan is available dock-only or as a decks + docks combo — one account, one customer list, one pipeline. Build both? The combo beats two subscriptions.
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There is no national dock code. A deck has the IRC and the AWC DCA 6 span tables; a dock has nothing equivalent — no national prescriptive standard, no span table, no document to certify a dock against. What governs a dock is a three-rung ladder. Rules with legal force come from your U.S. Army Corps district (Section 10 / 404), your state waterway agency, and local shoreline zoning. Below that sit published design guidelines — California Boating & Waterways’ 2005 marina guidelines are the closest thing to a citable design document, and they are guidelines, not law. Below that is documented manufacturer practice: published flotation methods, minimum water depths, pipe-dock limits. We name which rung every number stands on, and we never claim a dock complies with anything, because there is nothing for it to comply with.
Yes — docks are a second vertical on the same platform, for residential dock contractors. Enter the site (water depth at low and high water, bottom type, exposure) and the dock (floating, piling, or pipe; sections; gangway) — it produces a 3D waterfront preview, a priced material takeoff, and a branded PDF proposal.
Floating docks (float drums sized from the dock’s dead load at design submergence, plus deadweight or auger anchoring), fixed docks on driven pilings (bents sized to the run, embedment by bottom type), and pipe / roll-in docks (adjustable legs with a depth stability check).
Yes, and here is the exact basis. Float count is sized so the dock’s own dead weight rides at no more than 45% drum submergence, floored at 28 psf of total flotation — the bottom of the 28–35 psf residential band Dock Builders Supply publishes — with the 25 psf uniform live load from CA DBW 2005 §C2.2 served by the reserve above that. Catalog buoyancy ratings are measured at total submersion, so they are credited at design submergence rather than at face value. Pile lengths come from high-water depth plus embedment for the bottom type; pipe-leg counts from the run length, inside a conservative depth limit. Sourced numbers name their document and section. Where nothing is published — pile embedment, anchor spacing, frame cross-spacing — we say so on the line item and tell you to have it reviewed, rather than inventing a citation. Every quantity is editable line by line before you quote.
Dock work on public water is regulated — but by whom depends on your water, and that is the first thing the estimator asks. Pick your state and the kind of water and it names the authority and checks your dock against that authority's dimensional caps: Wisconsin DNR's 6 ft exempt pier width, Minnesota DNR's 8 ft no-permit width, WDFW's 6 ft over the first 30 ft plus its outright ban on floats grounding, Florida's 500 / 1,000 sq ft statutory exemptions, NYSDEC's 4 ft tidal catwalks, and TVA's 1,000 sq ft and 150 ft on its reservoirs. Where we hold no verified rules for your water — most states — it says so and tells you who to ask, rather than guessing at a cap. Federal Corps authorization (Section 10 / 404 — the 2026 Nationwide Permits run 2026-03-15 to 2031-03-15, and NWP 2 only covers structures in artificial canals in residential developments, so most new residential docks ride a district Regional General Permit instead) and local shoreline zoning still apply on top. For a jurisdiction we hold, the proposal's permitting section then names that authority and that document instead of a generic disclaimer; elsewhere it keeps the general one. We never tell you that you are permitted — that word belongs to the agency.
Yes. Floats that would ground out at low water, pipe docks specified past stable depth, gangways too short for the seasonal water-level swing, deadweight anchors in muck, open-water exposure, rock bottoms that need pinning rather than driving, and ice on a piling dock the owner expects to pull each fall. Every check carries a DOCK-BP code and names its rung on the authority ladder in the message itself, so you can see at a glance whether you are looking at a state rule, a published guideline, or trade practice.
It is an estimating tool, not stamped engineering, and three limits are worth knowing before you rely on it. Its jurisdiction cap table covers 6 authorities — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Florida, New York tidal waters, and TVA reservoirs — because those are the ones whose own documents we retrieved and checksummed; every other state returns "we do not have your rules, here is who to ask" instead of a number we cannot stand behind. It does not check freeboard against the published bands. And a dock outside light-duty residential practice — marina loading, open water, a boat lift, anything carrying vehicles — belongs with a marine engineer, and the app will tell you so rather than size it.
No. Decks and docks are one platform and one account. A combo plan covers both verticals: one customer list, one pipeline, one proposal history.
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Site conditions in, priced proposal out — with the 3D preview that sells it.
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