PROUDLY MADE IN CANADA WITH THE INDUSTRY'S ONLY 20-YEAR WARRANTY !!!
Advantage #1 : An Elegant Smooth Shape That Slips Right Out of Ice
When lake or river ice wants to move, twist or crack there is no stopping it - the only defense is to slip out of harm's way. Every other float on the market has sharp edges, extensive recesses, cavities, and/or ribs below the waterline. Those features allow ice to lock tightly into the float geometry just like a jigsaw puzzle. When the ice moves that jigsaw fit can exert a tremendous force on your float and attached dock frame and cause perilous damage.
Our float shape is different - it's uniquely rounded and smooth so it can slip right out of ice like an ice cube in a tray. if there is any relative twisting/lifting/movement of the ice our floats are better able to pop out of the surrounding ice and relieve the imposed forces on the dock. No dock is totally immune to ice damage if nature decides to get nasty, but with our fully-rounded dock floats in your corner you'll have the best chance of escaping winter unscathed.
Another benefit of the smooth profile (apart from a more elegant appearance) is that floating weeds and debris drifting by tend to slip right past the floats rather than getting caught up and collecting on edges/recesses/cavities/ribs. Also algae builds up more slowly because water flow is better - there are no little cavities of stagnant flow that are a perfect catalyst for algae growth.
Advantage #2 : Stronger Plastic = Tougher Float
Almost all our competitors sell roto-molded dock floats made from Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), the plastic used for soft commodity items like milk jugs, plastic bags, and snap-on tote lids. By contrast our floats are manufactured from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastic using finely tuned blow-molding equipment. HDPE is a much stronger and tougher plastic that performs better across a wider range of temperatures. The engineering data below quantifies just how dramatic an advantage HDPE provides:
The benefits of our floats extend well beyond 270% stronger material. Most dock floats have small flange recesses along the perimeter with specific predetermined mount holes. That means that your whole dock structure needs to be designed around those predetermined mount hole locations. That seems crazy to us! We think your dock float should accommodate your preferred dock design is - and that is exactly what our floats do.
All our floats have a continuous flange that extends 1.5" beyond the main float body all the way around the float. That means you can easily drill as many mount holes as you like, in any diameter that you like, at any location around the entire perimeter of the float. Most customers attach the floats with our mount kits (8 pcs of 3/8" x 4" Lag Screws, washers and lock washers), but our flanges are strong enough that even if you only have 3 or 4 mount points around the perimeter the flanges are still plenty strong enough to withstand the full buoyancy load.
Our float flanges are consistent thickness and extend a consistent distance from the float body. For this reason they are ideal for slot mounting (the float flanges slide into slots in the dock frame - very common with aluminum framed docks).
Additional Advantages :
The INDUSTRY'S BEST WARRANTY - 20 YEARS !!!
Taper-thread breather plug guarantees sealing - unlike white breather valves that can suck in water when floats expand
Meets or exceeds all Army Corps of Engineers/EPA requirement
One piece rounded seamless construction provides maximum protection from ice, animals, wear and decay
0.23" nominal wall thickness - the thickest in the industry
Resistant to oil, diesel fuel, saltwater, marine life and animal life
Ideal for cold weather environments (HDPE has much lower service temp than LDPE)
100% Recyclable - manufactured from eco-conscious recyclable materialslife
WHY WE DON'T FOAM-FILL THE FLOATS?
During our engineering research and design for our new floats we discovered two really big misconceptions that the whole industry, us included, were guilty of adopting and promoting. In hindsight these misconceptions are pretty obvious, but it’s human nature to accept the status quo especially when the vast majority seem to be in agreement.
Misconception #1 - Foam-filled floats are more resistant to damage because of the added firmness and structural support foam provides:
To our surprise testing revealed just the opposite. As long as the wall thickness is good, the plastic is strong, and the shape is accommodating, then the skin on an air filled float will very easily deflect around an object that is being poked into it or scraped along it, often without causing any damage at all. However, with a foam-filled float the foam actually provides backing that holds the plastic skin from bending out of the way of the protruding object and therefore causes that object to gouge or puncture with a far more force and damage.
Misconception #2 - Air-filled floats are riskier because a puncture will cause your dock to sink into the lake:
The first aspect of this is debunked by simple physics. A container will only fill with water if there is some way for the contained air to escape. Unlike a boat, a dock float is sealed everywhere so even if you drill an enormous hole in the bottom very little will happen – a small amount of water will go in only until the air inside the float gets to the same pressure as the water pressure. To visualize this just think of pushing an-upside down bucket into a lake – none of the air leaves the bucket, so it still maintains it’s buoyancy.
So what about the unlikely chance that you simultaneously get a puncture in the top and the bottom of the float? With a pipe dock you’d be in trouble because half the dock would lose all it’s buoyancy and you’d now have to extract and repair a water-filled pipe weighing several thousand pounds. However most float docks contain a bunch of floats spread all around a dock. If one gets punctured (on both the top and bottom at same time) just remove that one float, tip it over to pour the water out, and easily repair any holes with a hot clothes iron or soldering iron. Back to new again.
A foam-filled float however is not only more susceptible to puncture, but it’s also typically not repairable after puncture. Expanded Polystyrene foam resists water absorption in the short term, but will continuously soak up more water over a period of months. For this reason if your foam-filled float does end up with a leak it will slowly become more and more waterlogged. Once waterlogged there is no way to dry out the foam inside to recover the buoyancy, so repairing becomes pointless because all the water weigh is still inside.
Within months a punctured foam-filled float will lose a significant portion of it's buoyancy permanently, and you’d end up having to try to remove the float (that could now weigh a couple hundred pounds), transport it, pay the cost to landfill that weight (because although dock plastic is recyclable, dock foam is not and the two can’t be easily separated). Then you’d have the pleasure of buying a brand new float to replace the irreparable one (because physical damage isn’t typically covered by warranty). That certainly seems like a significant risk of loss compared to just draining an air filled float and quickly repairing it.
