Norris Lake Boat Dock Rewire on a Sharps Chapel Lake Home

The owners of this Sharps Chapel lake home had been using their boat dock for over a decade without thinking much about the electrical, until a neighbor's dock failed an insurance inspection and they asked us to take a look at theirs. What we found was typical of older Norris Lake docks: Romex run through schedule-40 PVC instead of liquid-tight conduit, no GFCI protection at the shore disconnect, missing bonding between the dock framing and the electrical grounding system, and a small sub-panel mounted directly on the dock decking instead of on the shore as required by NEC Article 555.

Because the work involved modifying the dock structure for new conduit pass-throughs, the project required a TVA Section 26a permit in addition to the local Union County electrical permit. We provided the drawings and load calculations for the homeowners' TVA application, which was approved in just under 35 days. From there, we pulled the electrical permit and scheduled the on-site work.

The rewire took two full days. Day one we ran new stranded THWN-2 conductors in liquid-tight conduit from the home, through the trench to a new shore-side disconnect, and out to the dock. Day two we installed a power pedestal with two GFCI outlets and a dock light, ran a dedicated 30 mA GFCI circuit for the underwater lighting using submersible-rated LED fixtures, and connected proper bonding throughout the dock structure. The job passed inspection on the first review and the homeowners now have a fully code-compliant Norris Lake dock that their insurance carrier accepted without issue.