A friend has a cabin on a private lake. We use it for "mandays" 4 or 5 times a year. This evening over Romeo y Julietas and Red Breast we were discussing upgrades to the property. His lot is located in the shallow end of the lake and consequently the "backyard" area stays wet. The water area is full of bullrushes and other aquatic plants. He is considering bringing in a track hoe and digging out the shallows to give a defined waterline. I suggested building a deck over the shallow vegetation with a pier leading to solid ground and the house. The group of guys I run with are pretty resourceful including access to the track hoe. No one however has any experience sinking piers into a marshy lake bottom.

I feel like the the deck idea is a cheaper/ easier fix to make better use of the property than dredging and filling but we would need advice from a pier sinking guru.

What is the outdoor boards take on this dilemma?

Hire a pro and watch them work whilst drinking copious amounts of homebrew

When we built our cabin on the ICW, we sunk our pilings in the sand using a gas powered water pump and a piece of pipe. It worked well for sand and shell, both on the spoil island and in the water for the pier. Not sure how well it will work for your situation.

We've got an awesome floating dock that we built. I'll see if I can find any pics.

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using a gas powered water pump and a piece of pipe.

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Another friend told me that this is how he sunk the piers on his deck. Using a garden hose as opposed to a pump however. I never really believed much that he said but this idea always seemed reasonable.

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Hire a pro and watch them work whilst drinking copious amounts of homebrew

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We already discussed the importance of homebrew in this project...along with barbecue and Irish whiskey.

Stainless Steel screws with the type 17 point. No pre drilling required. I've set 1/4" x 4" squrare drive screws on my deck with a 14.4 volt drill with no pre drilling requried.

Again, I am not sure of the soil composition in your area, but on the island, the water pump would fluidize the sand to a depth of 6 feet or so in just a minute or so. We would just run the pipe down alongside the piling, letting the piling drop in as the hole was being fluidized. The piling would want to float just a little while the water was running, but not so much that it couldn't be held vertical and in the proper location. As we extracted the pipe, the sand would settle around the piling, setting it in place by the time the pipe was pulled out.

Depending on what material you have access to you can build an awesome support structure this way. Get some 6 or 8" PVC pipe for your posts. Cap the bottom end. Jet them in adding water to keep them from floating out.

Once you have them properly aligned you can run a string and then drill holes at the level you want above the water. Run your bolts for attaching the stringers thru the holes....make sure they are long enough.

Once you feel comfortable with settling you can drop some rebar in the PVC and then fill with cement...it will displace the water. Leave enough room to trim the tops. Trim them off to height and dress them off with a cap.

Eliminates a lot of the structural maintenance associated with wood in water.

my wife's cousin has a place on lake lbj, and he did his with the water jet approach.

I had a place the guadalupe that's flood prone and anything not seriously stable would get washed downstream every 5 years or so... so the guy that put in my dock used pipe stem and sunk it into the lakebed with a mechanical vibrator/battering ram-type thing. as the pipe sunk to the water line, he welded another to it. Kept adding pipe until it hit bedrock.

You don't need that, but I saw two guys do similar using a metal pipe that was capped on one end and had handles along the length of it. The pipe was big enough to fit over the support timbers (a little smaller gauge than telephone poles). They slid it up and drove it down onto the timbers until they were sunk deep enough. [Unfortunately for them, that method is not up to code there, and they had to tear it out and rebuild it...]

A lot of good ideas here. Not knowing your soil conditions makes it tough to give you a solid answer.

You might want to try a combination of items mentioned. I would try using 4" or 6" steel pipe and driving it into the lake bed using a trackhoe. I am not sure how big of a track hoe you have access to but it would not take a real big one to accomplish this. Drive them in as far as you can and fill them up with concrete after they have been driven. This should make a solid base to start the deck with.

once you are done, brush it up so you can duck hunt out of it

Then invite the rest of us to part take in the festivities.

nac...where is that at? that is a nice place man!

Just outside San Augustine, TX.

It's my relaxation station.

is that where you got your username?

That's an awesome setup, nactown.

Eventually there's going to be a nice house/garage on top of the hill overlooking the pond.


And it will be glorious.

Just gotta wait for them to find some natural gas.

Make sure any contract you have prevents surface development between the dock & the proposed home location.

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The water area is full of bullrushes and other aquatic plants. He is considering bringing in a track hoe and digging out the shallows to give a defined waterline.

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Just FYI, if the private lake is considered a "water of the United States" by the Corps of Engineers, the excavation of an adjacent wetland (depending upon the size/volume) without prior authorization can be considered a violation of the Clean Water Act and more of a headache than you could imagine if someone were to notify the Corps.

When the Corps of Engineers show up....have a cow drinking out of the Stock Pond.

I built a deck that was a little over 3000 sq ft and part of it went 40-45 ft into the water with a fishing pier on the end. I suggest using a composite decking material, no staining, sealing or splinters and use stainless steel trim head screws-they virtually disappear.