A driveway gate is a fence that moves, which is why it fails differently. We size the frame, the footing and the hinge to the actual weight of the leaf, not to a standard post depth.
Get a Free QuoteA 14ft cedar-clad leaf can weigh several hundred pounds and it hangs off one post. Set that post like a fence post and it will lean inside a year, and once it leans the gate drags, the latch stops meeting and the opener starts straining.
We build gate posts as structure: oversized bell footings below the active clay, steel gate frames welded square, and adjustable hinges so the leaf can be trued after the concrete has fully cured.
Single or double leaf. The classic choice where you have the swing room and a level approach.
No track on the ground, nothing to jam with debris. The answer for sloped or narrow approaches.
A steel frame behind cedar cladding so it matches the fence but keeps its shape.
Powder-coated steel for visibility, airflow and a longer maintenance interval.
Driveway gates in Dallas County split into two jobs. In Preston Hollow and the Park Cities it is usually a short, level approach where a double swing looks right and the constraint is matching a masonry column already on site. Out toward Sunnyvale, Seagoville and the acreage east of the county, approaches are long and rarely level, and a cantilever slide avoids fighting the grade. Both share the same enemy: the black gumbo clay that swells and shrinks under the gate post. We take gate footings well below the active zone, because a gate post that moves half an inch is a gate that no longer latches.
Operators, safety devices and access control, fitted to a gate that has been made true first….
Stain fails on timing far more often than on product. Cedar has to dry out before it will take…
Make the yard secure first, document it properly for the claim, then rebuild the failed section…
Composite for people who are done with the stain cycle. Colour runs through the board, it does…
What to settle before a gate is fabricated.
Slope and space decide it more than taste. A swing gate needs level ground through its whole arc and room to open; a driveway that rises from the street will catch a swing leaf. Cantilever slide needs run-back room alongside the drive instead.
Deeper and wider than fence posts, in a bell footing sized to the weight of the leaf rather than to a standard depth. A gate post carries a hanging load that never stops pulling, which is why a gate set like a fence starts dragging inside a year.
Usually, but the gate posts get set new. Splicing a heavy leaf onto posts that were installed for pickets is the most common reason we get called back out to somebody else's gate.
Every load a fence carries statically, a gate carries dynamically, thousands of times. The leaf hangs off one side and swings, so the hinge post takes a load no fence post ever sees, and it takes it as leverage. Sizing that post like a fence post is the most common reason a driveway gate starts to drag.
A driveway gate is the first thing anyone sees. It is also the piece of the fence most likely to be operated several times a day for twenty years. A driveway gate is worth quoting alongside the fence it joins, even if you build it later, because the hinge post and the fence run share a line and the gate post has to be set correctly from the beginning. Adding a gate to a finished fence usually means rebuilding the section it opens from.
We walk your Dallas property, give you a straight price, and show you exactly how we build it to last.
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