General is the word that matters.
A page cannot see your dock, your panel, your beam or your boat, and two docks a hundred feet apart can need different answers. We check what we publish and we correct it when we find it wrong, but we cannot promise it is complete, current, or right for your situation. Anything you are going to spend money on — or hang a boat from — is worth confirming with the manufacturer, with a licensed electrician, or with whoever holds the permit.
What we do, and where it stops
We do the lift: cables, motors, gear plates, pulleys, brackets, the switch and the cord that feed it, and the structural work a lift needs where the load lands.
The branch circuit that feeds the dock belongs to a licensed electrician, and so does anything inside a panel or at the motor terminals. The wire size calculator on this site does arithmetic from the Code’s motor rules and the manufacturer’s own chart. It is not an electrical design and it is not an inspection. Your electrician sizes the install and your inspector has the last word.
When we look at a header beam and the posts under it, that is an experienced opinion about whether a lift belongs there. It is not an engineered load calculation and it is not a certification of your boathouse. Where we think a job needs an engineer, we say so before we quote.
Reading this site is not hiring us. Where a page describes what we do, it is describing our work, not instructing yours — and anything electrical starts with the power off.
No warranty on what is written here
Our work and this website are two different things.
On our own work we stand behind it: if something we did is not right, tell us within a year of us doing it and we will put our work right. That is our workmanship and our labor. The equipment carries Boat Hoist USA’s warranty, not ours, and none of it extends to your boat, your dock, or the structure the lift hangs from.
This website is information we give away. It comes with no warranty — we do not guarantee it is accurate, complete, current or fit for your purpose, and so far as the law allows we are not liable for loss or damage that follows from relying on it. That covers the pages, the tools, the checklists and the map.
Rules and warranties that belong to somebody else
Georgia Power decides what can be built on this shoreline. We restate their requirements because they are hard to find, and we say where we got them. Their published material governs. Nothing here is a permit. The dock rules, as we read them →
The National Electrical Code is the Code. Georgia adopts it with state amendments, counties and cities add their own, and your inspector enforces it. Editions move article numbers, so check any citation against the edition your job is held to.
Boat Hoist USA writes the warranty on its own motors and gear plates, and they decide what it covers. What we describe is the pattern we have seen, so you know what is worth avoiding. It is not their warranty and it is not a coverage decision. If you think you have a claim, make it rather than taking our word for it.
On rules, permits and warranty terms, what those three publish governs and this site does not. Where we read their technical material differently, we say so on the page and show our reasoning.
Ours, and other people’s
The photographs on our portfolio are of our own work. The writing is ours. On the lake map, the drawing and the text are ours — the shoreline and the creek names underneath are public record. Quote a paragraph and link back; we are glad of it. Do not copy pages wholesale, and do not scrape the site to republish it.
We link out to Georgia Power, Boat Hoist USA and others because they are the source. We do not run those sites and we do not check what is on them.
Prices
An estimate is what we give you after we have looked at the job, and that is what governs the work — not this website. On Lake Sinclair, estimates are free and there is no call-out fee. Anywhere else we agree it before anyone drives.
If we have got something wrong
Tell us. A fair amount of what is on this site got sharper because somebody on this lake said we had it wrong. Call or text, or email contact@phillipsmetalworksllc.com with the page in the subject line, and we will look at it.
Phillips Metalworks LLC is a Georgia limited liability company and this site is run from Georgia. This page is a notice we publish, not a contract anybody signed. If a court sets part of it aside, the rest still stands.
Last updated September 4, 2026. What happens to what you send us →