Marine electrical

On a coast where a large share of homes have a dock behind them, marine electrical is its own discipline. Ken wires dock power, boat lifts and shore power pedestals on the St. Lucie River, the Indian River Lagoon, the Loxahatchee and the canals off all of them — built for an environment that destroys ordinary electrical equipment.

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What's involved

Electric shock drowning, and why dock wiring is different

This is the thing every dock owner should know about. Faulty wiring on a dock or on a boat can energize the water around it. A swimmer in that water can be paralyzed and drown without ever receiving a visible burn or a shock they could describe — and it happens in fresh and brackish water far more readily than in salt. It's the reason modern code requires ground-fault protection on marina and dock circuits, and the reason nobody should swim near an energized dock. Correcting old, unprotected dock wiring is some of the most genuinely important work Ken does.

Dock power and shore power pedestals

Receptacles, lighting and 30-amp or 50-amp shore power run out to the dock in wiring methods rated for the location, with the protection and the emergency shutoff the code requires. The feed and its protection are sized for what actually plugs in — a boat drawing shore power for air conditioning and battery charging overnight is a real continuous load, not an occasional one.

Boat lifts

Lift motors need a correctly sized circuit, a disconnect, and control wiring in enclosures that survive being twenty feet from the water. Lift wiring is also the single most common thing Ken gets called out to on docks — because the original install used indoor-rated parts, and five years of salt air finished them. Rebuilding it with marine-grade enclosures, stainless hardware and corrosion-resistant terminations is the difference between fixing it once and fixing it every season.

Why dock and marine work needs a licensed electrician

Dock electrical combines everything difficult: water, salt, weather, a large continuous load, and a genuine drowning risk when it's wrong.

Ground-fault protection on dock circuits — the requirement that exists specifically to prevent electric shock drowning
Emergency shutoff and disconnects located and marked as required
Marine-grade, corrosion-resistant materials that survive brackish water and salt air
Permitted and inspected work on a structure your insurer will scrutinize
If your dock has never been checked, or anyone has felt anything in the water near it, that's the call to make today

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