Sliding Gates
The space-and-slope answer when swing fights the site.
Learn more →The Engineering That Prevents the Sag
- Posts & footings: the entire gate is a lever trying to tip its post — proper embedment and concrete are the project's real foundation, literally.
- Hinges rated for the load: heavy-duty bearing hinges (or sealed adjustable hinges) sized for the leaf weight, not whatever the hardware aisle had. Adjustability matters — it turns future settling into a wrench task instead of a rebuild.
- Frame bracing: a diagonal or engineered frame keeps the leaf square for decades. Unbraced decorative frames are pretty parallelograms in waiting.
- Ground clearance for reality: desert driveways heave and collect gravel; leaves need clearance set for the site, not the drawing.
Automating a Swing Gate
Arm operators (the visible articulated or linear arms) fit most residential gates and budgets; underground operators hide the machinery in foundation boxes for a clean estate look at a higher price. Doubles get synchronized dual operators with adjustable leaf delay so leaves close in the right order. Every automated swing gate gets photo eyes, obstruction reversal, manual release for outages — and battery or solar backup where power reliability or trenching costs argue for it.
Repairs We Do Weekly
Hinge replacement and adjustment, post straightening assessments, frame re-bracing coordination, operator arm and board repairs, and safety-device restoration on gates where past 'fixes' bypassed them. If your gate drags, chatters, or needs a shoulder shove to latch — that's early-stage, and early-stage is the cheap stage. See gate repair.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do swing gates sag, and can mine be fixed?
Sag comes from three places: hinges wearing (bushings and pins are consumables), posts moving (undersized footings lose the lever-arm fight over years), or the gate frame racking (light frames without diagonal bracing fold into parallelograms). Hinge and frame problems are very fixable; post/footing problems are fixable with more effort. We diagnose which one before quoting, because new hinges on a leaning post is money wasted.
Single leaf or double leaf?
Double leaves halve the swing radius and the per-hinge load — the default for wide residential openings and the symmetric estate look. A single leaf is simpler (one operator, one hinge line) and suits openings up to moderate widths. Beyond certain widths and weights, doubles stop being a preference and become engineering.
Which way should my gate swing?
Inward, toward the property, in almost all cases — it's the safety convention (a gate opening into the street is a hazard), usually the code expectation, and it lets arriving vehicles pull clear of traffic while the gate opens. Sloped properties sometimes force creative answers (uphill swings need clearance or special hinges); that's a site-visit conversation.
Do swing gates work with automation as well as sliders?
Yes — swing operators (arm and underground types) are mature, reliable hardware with the same UL 325 safety-device requirements. The honest caveats: solid privacy gates catch wind mid-swing, and steep driveways favor sliders. For most residential openings, swing automation is excellent.
Keep exploring
Related Services
Gate Openers
Arm operators, dual-leaf synchronization and backup power.
Learn more →Gate Repair
Hinge, post and operator rescues.
Learn more →