Refoaming is the job of taking off flotation that no longer carries the dock and replacing it with encapsulated floats Ameren Missouri has approved. It is one of the most common requests on an older Lake of the Ozarks dock, and it is regulated. It is not a weekend project with hardware-store foam.
What Ameren requires of the float
Appendix B, revised June 30, 2025, is the document. The short version:
- Only approved encapsulated flotation. Ameren keeps the manufacturer list and updates it. The names on Ameren’s dock requirements page are copied in the flotation guide. Confirm the live page before anyone orders floats.
- No new or recycled plastic or metal drums.
- The foam inside is extruded polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, or a polyethylene-polystyrene copolymer, at least 0.8 pounds per cubic foot, with beads fused and no voids inside the shell.
- Water absorption under the Hunt Absorption Test has to be under 3.0 pounds per cubic foot at 7 days, certified by the manufacturer.
- The shell is solid polyethylene or a polyurethane coating, watertight, at least 0.125 inches thick.
- The manufacturer warrants the float for at least eight years against sinking, becoming waterlogged, cracking, peeling, fragmenting, and losing beads, and against animal damage.
- Floats are attached with 3/8-inch minimum plated bolts, fender washers at least 0.120 inches thick, and lock nuts. Outside J-bolts are prohibited. Punching the shell to hang the float is not acceptable unless Ameren has specifically approved it.
If a float that already meets the spec gets punctured, Appendix B says replace it immediately. Crumbling white beads in the cove are the problem Ameren spent years pushing out of the lake.
The permit and who may do the work
Ameren’s dock requirements page says all docks and breakwaters, including additions, modifications, and refoaming, must be completed by a certified dock builder or the owner. The builder has to have the permit in hand before starting. A competing site, lakeozarkboatdocks.com, describes refoam permitting as a 30 to 60 day process. Ameren does not publish that timeline. Use it only as someone else’s planning range, and do not schedule a holiday weekend around it.
The permit fee schedule lists $550 for a new dock or a modification. Ask the builder whether your refoam is submitted as that modification. The fee is Ameren’s processing fee. It is not the price of the floats or the labor.
What it costs
lakeozarkboatdocks.com’s 2026 guide lists refoaming at $6,000 to $18,000. That is a competitor’s published range, not a quote from this site and not an Ameren fee. The range moves with the size of the dock, how hard the old foam is to remove, disposal, and whether the frame is still worth floating. If the steel is done, read refoam versus rebuild before you pay to float a frame that needs to come out.
What to put on the form
Choose refoam. Add the dock’s age, material, and number of wells. Say whether the dock lists to one side, sits low, or has visible broken foam. Note any lift or roof, because both count as dead load and the new floats have to carry them with at least 7 inches of freeboard under the frame. Photos of the foam, taken from the deck if that is all you can do safely, are enough to start.