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We have a camp on a small lake in the Adirondacks where the Adirondack Park Agency and the NY DEC keep a close eye on whatever we do on or near the water. We also have a well known environmental activist and writer on the lake who complains when we use our cell phones to tell folks back home the fish are biting. Everyones dock, including the 20×20 floater we built two weeks ago, is made of pressure treated southern yellow pine. The fish are fine and the APA and DEC are happy. If they are happy we are happy.
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I know this will mean you will not have the job of "building" the dock, but I used a product called "Candock" out of Quebec that was a modular floating dock. Each module is cube-like and about 18" on a side, they attach together and you walk on the float itself, not on a wood deck over a float. Mine is very stable and each section is lightweight for ease in moving it in and out of the lake in our northern clime for the winter. Although, I also left a portion in through winter in water without moving ice. dl
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David - do you by any chance have any literature with the company address on it? Or maybe is it stamped in the material? This sounds kinda promising. Thanks - jb
*JimThose docks are kinda neat if you like the modular black plastic look. They still need to be secured by some steel posts driven into, or sitting upon the lake bed. A customer of mine has one, elderly guy, sets it up and takes it in by himself every year, whilst all his neighbours are getting double hernias hauling their wooden contraptions in and out of the water.They can be assembled into "T's" or "L's" or "U's", or doubled up for a width. If David doesn't come up with the info e-mail me and I'll check into it for you. They're available here in Ontario, I didn't know they were made in Quebec.-pm
*Patrick, man, that sounds slick. Sounds like you could even change the configuration, add on later, whatever. I called a couple places today about floatation devices, MAN, those things are spendy!"Great Notion" is a tough read for me. I am going to keep pluggin' but with firewood cuttin' and end of school year functions, it has been slow treadin'. I don't remember "One Flew Over..." being as complex a story line. - jb
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OK, I've searched the archives. A customer wants me to replace a small part of a floating dock in a fresh water lake. My first thoughts were, "...cedar won't last long...but pressure treated will poison the fish, which folks eat." What do you think? - jb
*white oak if you can find it holds up real well. try a local sawmill, that's where I usually find i in 2x & rough sawn. I would imagine cypress or teak would work as well.
*ditto... many a bridge was planked with white oak.
*Here in Louisiana we have hundreds, if not thousands, of lakes,rivers,swamps,etc. We also have tons of fish. Almost every dock down here is either built of pressure treated lumber (wolmanize,osmose or whatever kinda copper sulfate stuff that is) or creosote. We do not have fish floating around dead. Many of these docks have been in the water for years and some lakes have the banks lined with piers for miles. If you want a mess of fish come visit me sometimes. P.S...We do have the higest cancer rate in the nation here.
*I am trying to track down some white oak, great suggestion, thanks. One contractor here in my home town suggested...concrete. I think it's worth a look. Could be easily formed and poured, and will definately last "forever". One challenge I see might be floatation, we'll see. - jb
*Jim,I spent last week building a floating dock ofCCA lumber and 3/4" CCA plywood. The material wasapproved by the Corps of Engineers. Their infostated that creosote was not allowed on some lakes.Don't underestimate the difficulty of the project. I expected it to be similar to a deck,but somewhat more difficult. The factors of movement, water, sun, material and tool portage, generator all added up to what I thought would be a 1 week job turning into a 2 week job. It would have been simple if we could have assembled the entire dock on the shore, but it was too large and heavy.This is my private dock, I would probalby never do another! Another tip, most tools don't float.Good luck
*Where did you get this info that pressure treated poisons the fish?
*A lot of strange gab here being that we have built more docks than any other single project....Many woods will last up to twenty years...Oak, white pine, hemlock, pressure treated southern yellow pine, cedar, cypress, redwood, u banga, teak, mahaghany, and more...The fish aren't having problems with copper sulfanate as of any studies in fifty years of use...Docks can be fun to build and do cost more than a deck and it is easier to build a dock on land....Any other questions?Near the stream,J
*Hey Charles - I thought about this all evening, trying to say it susinctly, but I just have to ramble, Every time I work with the stuff, my eyes itch and I sneeze like hell. Not just sawdust sneeze - but "your body doesn't like this stuff" sneeze. If I get a sliver, and don't pull it out right away, it gets infected, fast. I have even read bits and pieces through the years about the soil under decks framed with this stuff being contaminated from rain washing this stuff onto ground. I seem to remember the word "arsenic" being associated with the stuff they inject into this lumber. And finally, to tell you the truth, I just think of it as common knowledge that the stuff is basically poisonous. Am I making unfair or unfounded generalizations? It sure wouldn't be the first time I was totally "out to lunch". Do you think I'm wrong? - jb
*Did this two years ago. The addition to my dock was 14x6 due to DNR regulations on maximum width. I assembled the base with PT 2x12's attached with 10" deep 4" angle iron and thru bolts. The barrels sit inbetween the 2x12s with 4x4's running the narrow way to keep the barrels from moving around and give added rigidity due to ice, etc. I assembled the whole thing on my deck using the barrels as a work surface. I then unbolted it, and assembled it in the water near the shore placing the barrels before I put on the decking - though you can use a barrel jack. It worked well, and I have pictures of myself in the water, chest deep with my trusty Milwaukee drill. Seems the ground was in good condition. My helper that year was the same guy I loaned money to this year (510 paid off, 990 to go) and he kept dropping various tools in the water - and they don't float as mentioned above. Also, if you are adding to an existing floating dock, it is tough to get the decks to line up this way as the placement of the barrels determins the height of the dock above the water. Mine has a slight slope, but it is to quote Blue, close enough. Good luck.Dennis
*Just a note on bolting the members together at right angles. You probably know this, but for what it is worth, in some places I face drilled one 2x12 with a 1 1/2" hole saw and then drilled a 9/16" from the end of the plank thru the center of the 1 1/2" hole. You then thru bolt the two planks with a 1/2" bolt and washer. On the existing dock this worked for over 30 years in WI winters. Dennis
*Jim, I think that its a pretty big leap to say that something poisons the fish because it makes you sneeze. Never had any of those problems myself and work with it nearly every day. I just wanted to know where you got the information and if it was something new that I hadnt seen. I would think that a few more sticks of PTL in the lake wouldnt make much difference anyway and there are a lot more pressing environmental problems. Just dont think people should state things as fact when they are not proven. A lot of people here use cypress and it seems to work well and its around the same price here. Sometimes I just dont think that its necessary to bash one product to justify using another. What is common knowledge to me is that it is used in just about every body of water here and hasnt killed a fish yet as far as i know.
*In my area ( Minnesota) A lot of the PT is arsinic free.
*The indications are that CCA pressure treated lumber binds the arsenic, copper, and lead quite tightly when the wood is intact. There will be a small amount of leaching, but over the short term, the small amount of toxic metals that leach will be diluted considerably in a large lake and will probably not be noticed against the normal background amounts of such metals that naturally occur in many soils. If you wanted to be a bit compulsive, you probably should clean off any salts and residue that occur on the surface (using, of course appropriate protective equipment) and then discard what you used to wipe it off with as toxic waste, which it will be. It is recommended that pressure treated lumber be sealed to further contain any leaching that may occur.The real problem is not in the short term, but further down the pike when the wood begins to disintegrated after its approx. 40 year life span. The toxic metals will then be released into the environment. In a lake, this release will be diluted and probably will be little noticed. However, my guess is that in a couple of decades all of this rotting and disintegrating CCA treated lumber will become what lead paint and asbestoes were during the last couple of decades. If the toxic metals in CCA treated lumber were completely released it would be something like 400 times (I might be a little off on this) more toxic than current EPA guidelines allow. CCA is allowed in most landfills only because the pressure treated industry and their lobbyists managed to get it exempted from normal toxic materials requirements. However, when it decays or is burned, the residue does become a hazardous material. There is controversy about it being burned in municipal incinerators because it only takes a few pieces of CCA to contaminate the whole batch of ash - which municpalities would like to sell for various uses such as fertilizer to recoup some of the costs. When that nice looking deck finally rots, it will turn your yard into a mini-"superfund" site. Arsenic could then be taken up by any root vegetables growing in the area and any grazing cows on this area could get enough in their milk to exceed the allow limits for human consumption. Reportedly, cows have died from grazing in pastures where CCA lumber ashes have been spread - a tablespoon of CCA lumber ash is supposedly enough to kill a full grown cow. Liability issues here could become interesting. After some weathering, CCA wood can be difficult distinguish from normal wood. Suppose you leave behind some scraps of CCA along with other lumber pieces and someone comes along and uses them for firewood. Suppose he does this in his fireplace (as some have done) and a child starts showing signs of arsenic and lead poisoning. Could the person who gathered up the wood sue you for neglegence? I assume most of us aren't going to be around in 40 years to worry about it, but if land fills tighten up their requirements for dumping, how much is it going to cost to get rid of some of this old CCA material when it is no longer structurally sound? Generally, it is recommended that CCA treated lumber only be used when absolutely necessary in areas in direct contact with the ground. For above ground applications, alternative treatments are felt to be just about as good. Even for direct ground contact, there is an alternative pressure treatment called ACQ which reportedly uses no EPA listed toxic materials. Unfortunately, this material is not widely available.Information on the ACQ treatment can be found at:http://members.xoom.com/superiorwood/quest.htmhttp://www.bbslumber.com/tech.htmhttp://www.conradwp.com/acq.htmFor a somewhat lengthy collection of discussion about potential problems of CCA, see:http://metalab.unc.edu/InterGarden/pested/faqs/pressure-treated-lumber/PT-Lumber.faq3.more-gen-info
*In my area ( Minnesota) A lot of the PT is arsinic free.
*Charles - don't think that because you "...never had any of those problems myself..." you are not slowly building the toxins up in your body. As an example, they used lead in paint for many years, and while it's true that exposure to a small amount of it probably won't have an effect on a person, they now know that as it enters your body, it stays there and builds up through your lifetime, and is even passed down through your children to cause birth defects and brain damage in later generations. I think there is definately the possibility of a similar problem developing over long periods of time with pressure treated lumber. Like I said, I have no empirical evidence, just the belief that it could be true. - jb
*Jim,Believe what you want about CCA lumber, but your sneeze and infected sliver have nothing to do with the preservative. I think I could get your reactions from anybody if I blew untreated pine sawdust into their eyes and noses. And any dirty slivers will cause an infection. The only "evidence" I've seen of CCA contaminating the ground was a baseless article in an organic gardening magazine. An article done by This Old House magazine a year or two ago that sounded the panic trumpet on CCA dangers has since been mostly refuted. If one is concerned about CCA, then they may wish to try ACQ.Uh, your comments on lead are also a bit alarmist. Life must be good in that glass bubble.
*While I have to agree with Barry Miller that it is unlikely that the sneezing from CCA treated wood probably is not due to treatment chemicals. Actually many common woods contain toxic or allergy inducing chemicals. With any of them as well as CCA, it is prudent to wear a dust mask. As to the sliver, it would seem that the toxic properties of the CCA preservatives should actually act as somewhat of a aneseptic...You probably should be protecting yourself from most wood dust. Sometimes a glass bubble would have been nice - I am almost completely deaf as a result of not knowing in my youth the dangers of running a jackhammer without hearing protection. Not to mention the various allergies I acquired later in life to various petroleum based solvents that might have resulted from the common practice in the old days of washing ones hands with gasoline. While it is true that most activities in life come with some degree of risk, it still makes sense to take precautions when dealing with toxic substances - which CCA clearly is. OK, so the Russians in the last centry used to eat arsenic to put a little color in their cheeks, but that still doesn't mean the stuff is good for you. Enough of the sermon... Barry, I would be interested in where you found information that you claim refutes most of what was in that This Old House article. There is documentation of the stories of the cows being killed (actually they didn't die from the arsenic but were put to death by the local vet because of their acute symptoms of arsenic poisoning and the high levels of toxic metals in their milk) and the family suffering from inhaling the smoke from burned CCA treated wood. Even the data sheets that are supposed to be handed out with CCA treated wood (but almost never are) say to keep the stuff away from food and drinking water and to properly dispose of the sawdust and wood. I use CCA when I can't find a suitable alternative (I have tried to order ACQ, but none of the local lumber yards will order the stuff) but I still consider it as a piece of wood that is soaked with toxic heavy metals.
*We have a camp on a small lake in the Adirondacks where the Adirondack Park Agency and the NY DEC keep a close eye on whatever we do on or near the water. We also have a well known environmental activist and writer on the lake who complains when we use our cell phones to tell folks back home the fish are biting. Everyones dock, including the 20x20 floater we built two weeks ago, is made of pressure treated southern yellow pine. The fish are fine and the APA and DEC are happy. If they are happy we are happy.
*Barry, I'm guessing the organic gardening magazine is "Organic Gardner". How do you figure it was baseless? The information was floating around the scientific end of the environmental community for a while before it became "public".
*As i sit drinking a glass of chromated copper arsenate mixed with pepsi cola i wonder what all this fuss is about. When I was a kid they put creosote in cough syrup and when we drank it we thought it tasted like a light pole. Now the stuff is banned. maybe we should start making cca cough syrup........
*Is that the secret ingedient?
*A bulletin that I have from Health & Welfare Canada, and endorsed by the Canadian Medical Assoc. clearly states that "exposure to the preservatives in Pressure Treated Lumber, namely i creasote, inorganic arsenic, pentachlorophenol (PCP) and copper salts . . . b can cause skin or respiratory irritation, cramps, diarrhea, fever, liver damage, corrosion of skin or mucous membranes, or risk of lung cancer, depending on the preservative.Childrens sensitive skin and membranes put them at risk. Even pets can suffer! Bury do not burn remnants of p-t wood."In Ontario, no p-t wood is allowed in or near water, and is buried, not burned at landfills.If you keep pissing into a pail of water sooner or later it will start to stink, and one drop will be the catalyst that finally starts it.Your local Lake may be a Big pail, but everything has it's limits!!!-pm
*As a kid you were going around tasting light poles? Boy, I must have had a sheltered childhood!Rich Beckman