Answers, before you have to ask.

Depends on the tier. Sales Rendering, Design Set, Design Set + Renderings, and the Engineered Package are drawings only — dimensioned CAD plans, framing and section details, and (from the Design Set up) a square-footage budget checked against Duke Energy's cap for your shoreline frontage — and submitting the application to the reviewing agency is on you or your builder. The Permit-Filed Package and Permit-Filed Engineered Package are the two tiers where we prepare the agency forms, narrative, and adjacent-owner notices and handle the submittal to Duke Energy Lake Services, USACE, your county building department, or whichever agency applies.

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If your submission is rejected because of something we got wrong, we fix it at no charge. If it's rejected for a reason outside our control — a policy detail, information you provided that changed, or a condition that turns up during your agency's own review — your standard revision terms apply: the revisions included with your tier, then $150 each after that.

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Not ourselves — we don't provide licensed structural engineering services. Our Engineered Package and Permit-Filed Engineered Package both include an independent review by a licensed professional engineer, who stamps the drawings after confirming they meet applicable structural and code requirements, and provides the structural calculations Duke Energy requires. That extra review is why those two tiers run longer than the Permit-Filed Package's window — the Permit-Filed Engineered Package longer still, since it also includes our own agency submittal.

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Yes. The drawings are yours once delivered — they aren't tied to any builder we work with. Take the same set to your own builder, or to several builders and compare bids against each other.

Our pricing tiers are scoped for standard residential docks. Multi-slip, marina, or other commercial work falls outside that pricing — contact us and we'll quote it separately.

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Four things: your property address, a rough drawing of what you have in mind, any lake-authority or HOA constraints you're aware of, and your approximate shoreline frontage. A site survey is not required — we work from the measurements and information you give us.

You don't need one. Plans are based on the property details, rough drawing, and site information you provide, plus GIS and bathymetric data where it's available for your lake. Dimensions still have to be field-verified before construction starts — that's standard for any dock design, not something specific to skipping a survey.

Every one-time tier includes 2 rounds of revisions (the Builder Retainer follows its own retainer terms instead). After that, additional revisions are $150 each, with no cap on how many you can request. A revision needed because of an error on our end — including a permitting rejection caused by our mistake — is free regardless of how many rounds you've already used.

PDF, on every tier. Sales Rendering, Design Set + Renderings, and Builder Retainer also deliver renderings as individual image files, in addition to the PDF set.

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5 business days for Sales Rendering and Design Set, 7 for Design Set + Renderings, 10 business days to submission for the Permit-Filed Package. The Engineered Package runs 10–20 business days, and the Permit-Filed Engineered Package runs 15–25 business days to submission, since both add an independent licensed PE review and structural calculations before delivery, and the engineer's own queue is outside our control. Duke Energy's own review after submission typically runs 4 to 12 weeks on top of that, and is outside our control too. The Builder Retainer gets priority turnaround on a dedicated production slot with rush fees waived. Rush turnaround is available on the other tiers for a surcharge — ask when you submit your project.

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Our confirmed jurisdictional experience is Lake Norman, working to Duke Energy Lake Services, USACE Nationwide Permit, and NCDEQ requirements. Working somewhere else? Send us your reviewing agency's checklist and we'll confirm whether we can take on your project within 24 hours.

Lake Norman permitting

Per-project pricing is flat regardless of how many one-off projects a builder brings us — no ad-hoc discount, no surprises either direction. If you need regular, ongoing capacity, the Builder Retainer gets you 3 drawing sets a month, billed monthly, with priority turnaround, rush fees waived, and a 10% discount on the permitting and engineering tiers.

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Some dock companies do offer a design at no charge, and some charge for it without saying so up front — either way, that design is a sales tool built to lock you into their build. A design you pay us for is yours: take it to your builder, or shop it to several builders and compare bids against each other, which a builder's own free drawing was never going to let you do.