Our Gate Work Around Orlando
New gates, reworked hinges and latches, fitted operators and the small checks that keep a gate swinging true.
Gate work is mostly detail work. A new driveway gate, a reworked hinge post and a pair of swing operators look like different jobs, but each comes down to the same things: a post that stands plumb, hardware sized to the leaf, and connections that stay tight.
The photos are from our own gate jobs. The same five kinds of work make up our gate services: installation, repair, openers and automation, access control and maintenance.
Installation
A double swing driveway gate in black steel with a scrolled upper rail, and a matching walk gate beside it with a keyed lock. A walk gate next to the driveway gate lets people come and go on foot without opening the full width, and a shared design keeps the two reading as one entrance.
On a gate like this the work starts below ground. The posts carry the whole weight of each leaf, so they need to stand plumb in footings deep enough for Central Florida’s sandy soil, with hinges sized to the leaf. The two driveway leaves then have to meet evenly in the middle and latch without being lifted, the test every new gate installation has to pass.
Repair
Two repairs on square steel gate posts. In one, a post beside a stucco wall carries a pair of heavy weld-on hinges for a leaf hung with a mesh screen. In the other, a latch keeper with two slots is welded to the face of a post, so the latch has something solid to meet.
Many gate repairs come down to parts like these. A worn hinge or a cracked weld lets the leaf drop, and a dropped leaf drags, binds or misses its latch. Rebuilding the hinge point or the keeper puts the leaf back where it belongs, and often makes a gate repair a sound alternative to a new gate.
Openers and Automation
A black steel double swing gate with spear-point pickets, hung between stone piers, with a swing operator arm mounted low on each pier. Each leaf has its own operator, and the control board runs the pair so the two leaves open and close in step.
Fitting an operator is as much about geometry as about the motor. The arm has to be mounted where it can push the leaf through its full swing without straining, the limits have to stop the gate in the right place, and the photo eyes and the manual release have to work before the gate runs on its own. Low-mounted operators also need to sit clear of irrigation spray and the lawn mower. Matching an operator to the gate’s size, weight and daily use is where gate opener work begins.
Access Control
Access control is the part of a gate job that decides who gets in. A keypad on a gooseneck pedestal at the drive, remote transmitters for the household, an intercom so visitors can call the house, a card or fob reader for a shared entrance, a loop detector in the drive that opens the gate for cars on their way out: each one connects to the operator’s control board and has to be programmed and tested with it.
Much of this work is wiring and programming inside a control box, out of sight once the cover goes back on. Planned well, it also covers the people who are easy to forget: delivery drivers, a lawn service, and fire and emergency responders, who may need a Knox key switch or a siren sensor where the local fire authority asks for one. Each choice brings its own things to plan for, and settling them is the starting point of any access control job.
Maintenance
A close view of a heavy adjustable barrel hinge welded to a gray steel post, with its upper nut and pin in view. A hinge like this carries the weight of the leaf every time it swings, and its adjustment lets the leaf be raised or squared again as the hinge wears, without rehanging the gate.
Maintenance is mostly a matter of looking at parts like this before they turn into a repair: hinges and rollers for play and wear, tracks for sand and debris, the operator, the photo eyes and the limit settings, and the backup battery, the part most often forgotten until the power goes out. How often those checks make sense depends on how hard the gate works, and that sets the rhythm of gate maintenance.
A Gate Job of Your Own
Whether you have a new gate in mind or an old one that is worn or not working at all, call or send a request with the address and a short description, and we will arrange a time to look at it.