Custom Gates That Make an Entrance

Most of our projects land between $5,000-$15,000 installed. A gate sits across that whole range depending on four things, roughly in order of how much they matter:

• Width of the opening. A gate is a cantilever. Double the span and you do not double the steel — you move up a section size, and the hinges, posts and footings all step up with it.
• Automated or manual. The operator, safety sensors, loop detectors, access control and the trenching for power are frequently a third of the finished number. A manual gate is a much smaller project.
• Infill. An open picket or horizontal-bar gate is the most affordable. Solid privacy panel is heavier, which pushes the hardware up. Ornamental scrollwork is labor.
• What is already in the ground. New footings and posts on a sloped or soft driveway edge cost more than hanging a gate on existing columns that are actually plumb.

A large automated driveway gate sits at or above the top of that range once the operator and wiring are in. A pedestrian or courtyard entry gate is well below it. Send photos of the opening and we will come back with a rough number, usually within one business day.

This gets decided by the site, not by preference, and it is worth settling before anything is designed.

Swing gates look better, cost less, and have fewer moving parts. They need clear, level space to open into — a swinging leaf that has to climb a rising driveway will bind, and one that opens outward toward the road is a hazard and often not permitted. On a driveway that slopes up from the street, a swing gate is usually the wrong answer.

Slide gates need side room along the fence line roughly equal to the opening width, but they handle grade without complaint and they work on a short driveway where a swinging leaf would hang out into traffic. They carry more hardware — track or cantilever rollers, guides, a heavier operator — so they cost more.

We look at the grade, the approach, and where a vehicle actually has to stop before recommending one. On a scanned site we can see the fall across the opening before anything gets cut.

If your gate will be motorized, two published standards apply, and they cover different halves of the job. They exist because automated gates have injured people, and an installer who has never mentioned them to you is a warning sign.

UL 325 covers the operator and its safety systems. For a residential gate — Class I in the standard's language — the operator must have at least two independent monitored entrapment-protection devices, so the motor stopping is never the only thing standing between the gate and whatever is in its way. UL 325 is also explicit that an automated vehicle gate is for vehicles: people are meant to use a separate pedestrian gate.

ASTM F2200 covers how the gate itself is built and installed. For a residential gate that means openings screened so a 2-1/4 inch sphere cannot pass below 48 inches above grade, and no 4-inch sphere between 48 and 72 inches; gaps between the gate panel and its support structure no greater than 2-1/4 inches; weight-bearing exposed rollers under 8 feet guarded or covered; and the gate installed so it cannot fall more than 45 degrees from vertical if it comes off its hardware.

Those dimensions are the reason a gate that is going to be automated should be designed as an automated gate from the first sketch. Retrofitting an operator onto a gate that was never detailed for one usually means re-screening the infill and re-doing the guides.

A driveway gate lives outdoors, in the wet, and gets touched every single day. Paint on a gate is a maintenance schedule. We powder coat — full prep, then a baked finish that does not chalk, streak, or run rust down a driveway pillar after a few Northwest winters. Powder coat turns around in under 1 week and costs a little more up front, and it is the single clearest difference between a gate that still looks right a decade later and one that does not.

Hinges, rollers and the operator want a look once a year. That is close to the whole maintenance story on a properly built steel gate.

We are in Vancouver, Washington — Clark County, not Vancouver, BC. Gates go out to Vancouver, Camas, Washougal, Ridgefield, Battle Ground, Salmon Creek, Felida, La Center and Hockinson, and across the river to Portland, Lake Oswego, West Linn and Happy Valley.

Everything is fabricated in our own shop and installed by our own crew. Nothing about the steel is subcontracted, so one team is accountable from the first measurement to the last fastener.