Frequently Asked Questions

Three separate mechanisms. Expansion: water expands roughly 9% when it freezes, so the sheet is under compression and pushes outward against everything fixed at its edge. Thermal cycling: the sheet grows on warm days and shrinks on cold nights, and each cycle ratchets structures a little further out of position. Ice jacking: ice freezes onto a piling, then the sheet lifts with rising water and pulls the piling upward out of its embedment. Jacking is the most common failure we are called to on Lake George.

Not every winter, but most. The lake has fully frozen in roughly 70% of years since 1980, typically reaching full ice cover around 19 January, and when it does freeze it stays frozen for about 76 days on average. From a construction standpoint you have to design as though it will freeze, because in most years it will.

Everything that can. Floating dock sections, swim platforms, ladders, boat lifts and cradles, canopies, furniture and any hardware that unbolts. Anything left in a shallow slip is at the mercy of the sheet. Fixed cribs and pilings stay, which is exactly why they need to be built for it.

They do work — they keep water moving so ice cannot form and grip a structure — but they create open water and dangerously thin ice on a lake with real winter recreation traffic. That is a serious decision affecting more people than you. Discuss it with us and with your neighbours, mark the area, and treat it as a considered choice rather than a purchase.

A piling standing proud of its neighbours; a dock visibly out of level or twisted; decking opened up, cupped or split at the fasteners; the whole structure shifted shoreward with a gap at the water end; cracked framing at connections; and stone from inside a crib now lying on the bottom beside it.

Lake George is drawn down over the winter, which lowers the surface by several feet from the summer level. For owners it means shoreline structures are exposed to air and ice in ways they are not in summer — and for us it means the drawdown is the best window of the year for crib and shoreline work, because the shallows are workable.

Yes, and it is the single highest-value thing you can do. An autumn inspection catches the marginal piling or the spreading crib before ice loads it. A spring inspection catches what the winter did while the repair is still small. Twice a year is the right rhythm on this lake.

Under the Adirondack Park Agency definition, a boathouse is a covered structure with direct water access, used only for storing boats and associated equipment, containing no sanitary plumbing of any kind, not exceeding a single story (the roof rafters rest on the top plate of the first-floor wall), with a footprint of 1,200 square feet or less and a height of 15 feet or less.

No. Sanitary plumbing of any kind takes the structure outside the boathouse definition, and a habitable second storey breaks the single-story rule. Structures like that exist on the lake but generally predate the current rules and are treated as pre-existing non-conforming — a status that is valuable and surprisingly easy to lose during a rebuild.

The APA definition allows up to 100 square feet of combined deck and porch footprint attached to a boathouse without it counting toward the 1,200 square foot footprint, provided those decks and porches are not adjacent to a dock. Beyond that, and for sundecks on top, the height limit and the single-storey rule come into play. It is very site-specific.

Almost always that something below the waterline has moved — a crib has settled, spread or lost its stone, or a piling has been jacked. The carpentry is a symptom. Any assessment that does not start underwater is not an assessment.

Often, and sometimes it is the only option worth having: many older Lake George boathouses are larger than current rules would permit for a new build, so the existing structure carries value that cannot be recreated. If the framing is sound and the problem is underneath, restoration is usually the right call. When sills and floor framing have gone too, the maths changes.

There is no useful average, because the variables that drive cost — bottom composition, depth, exposure, access, and how many agencies review it — differ wildly between properties a mile apart. What we can tell you is why it costs more than a deck: materials often arrive by barge, the working window is short and weather-dependent, in-water work is a specialist trade, and the structure has to survive annual ice loading. We quote from a site visit, and the quote is itemised.

The previous summer or autumn. Permitting takes months, and the best structural window is the winter drawdown. April calls for July docks are the most common disappointment we have to deliver.

Yes, year-round. Storm damage, ice events, structural failures and boat lift failures. Call (518) 260-9878 — details on our emergency service page.

Routinely — most Lake George property is seasonal. We hold keys, send photo updates, coordinate with caretakers and property managers, and work to a hard arrival date.

Yes. We photograph damage above and below the waterline, describe the likely mechanism and sequence, and provide an itemised scope. Adjusters want cause as well as cost, and a report explaining how ice moved a crib supports a claim far better than a materials list.

The full Lake George basin — the village, Bolton Landing, Diamond Point, Cleverdale, Assembly Point, Kattskill Bay, Pilot Knob, Hague, Silver Bay, Huletts Landing, Putnam Station, Ticonderoga, Queensbury, Glens Falls and the surrounding towns — including shorelines reachable only by water.