Saturday, August 25, 2007

How to Build a Wood Bulkhead

This is a sketchcast of how to build a wood bulkhead. It covers the basic design and components of a wood bulkhead. This is a follow up of how to build a vinyl bulkhead a few weeks ago.



Here are the basic wood bulkhead components covered in the sketchast:

  • Pilings
  • Wales
  • Center Match
  • Filter Cloth
  • Tie Rods
  • Dead Men
  • Hardware
One main point is to always make sure you use properly treated wood when building a wood bulkhead as it will have a huge impact on how long the wall lasts. If you are building in saltwater, use wood treated to a retention of 2.5 pcf. If your bulkhead will be in freshwater, use at least .60 pcf treated wood.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.

Posted by Chris Denny at 10:37 PM

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:47 PM

    i am in gilchrest texas where the hurricane just took out everything. I need to try and put in 120 feet of bulkhead in on the bay side in a small canal. It dead ends no big boat traffic.If i could get the poles set it would be a big help.How do i set them without heavy equipment.Thanks Butch

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris Denny7:22 AM

    Butch,

    hmmm. For the long-term, I am not so sure it would be a big help to set the poles (the foundation of your entire structure) the cheap way.

    You could "jet" them in or use an auger to drill tight holes to pound them into.

    However, please consider that the idea of the piles is to support the entire structure that you are about to spend a lot of money building.

    In fact, if you are trying to save money you might consider having someone else set the poles and then building the rest of it yourself.

    You might save your back, too.

    Good luck and BE SAFE.

    ReplyDelete

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