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Electric gate mechanisms


Moira Niedzwiecka

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A condition of my planning permission is to install inward opening electric gates 5m back from the public highway.

I am on a single track lane & need to have a cars length to pull off the road in front of the gates.

My access is also slightly sloping uphill.

Has anyone any knowledge of electric gate mechanisms?

Prices from electric gate companies are prohibitive for me at the moment.

I have seen mechanisms for sale on ebay that could be affordable but just a bit unsure if any good.

The gates & gateposts will be timber.

Any suggestions appreciated.

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I don't know if you've looked, but there are some simple, and ingenious, hinge arrangements that allow ordinary gates to swing up a sloping drive, like this rising gate hinge:

 

 

 

It would be pretty easy to fix an electric opener to such a gate, such as these ones, for example: https://www.easygates.co.uk/electric-gates/automaticgates.asp.  Our local farm supplies place stocks rising hinge sets just like the one used in that video.  My guess is that they are probably a stock item, as needing a gate to open uphill seems to be a fairly common requirement.

 

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18 hours ago, Moira Niedzwiecka said:

A condition of my planning permission is to install inward opening electric gates 5m back from the public highway.

I am on a single track lane & need to have a cars length to pull off the road in front of the gates.

My access is also slightly sloping uphill.

Has anyone any knowledge of electric gate mechanisms?

Prices from electric gate companies are prohibitive for me at the moment.

I have seen mechanisms for sale on ebay that could be affordable but just a bit unsure if any good.

The gates & gateposts will be timber.

Any suggestions appreciated.

I was quoted 3500 plus vat to install two CAM motors and wiring 

Plus the gates on top 

I asked an electrician friend for help 

He declined as it wasn’t something he new about I rang Gates Gates who supplied me the same motors and box of tricks and told me to give them a call when wiring 

Wiring them is all plug and play 

Each terminal is numbered 

I messed up on wiring the sensor eyes Two wires wrong way round 

The motors came to £600 

An afternoon to bury and align the boxes A full day installing the gates 

Someone with an electrical background would find them a doddle

For gate made and installed we had been quoted £7000 

With what I paid a local iron works 

and buying Idigbo to board them with All In has cost 2400 

A massive difference  

 

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We had our two pairs of gates (drive is in and out) professionally made & installed and it was not cheap but they did a great job and there was a lot of work in it, so hat off to @nod doing it solo.

 

The motors, controllers & remotes are CAME.

 

Agree that the electrical side of things looks straight forward  - we also have an induction loop for exit and an intercom for visitors.

 

Most of the work was trenching in cable runs and setting out and fixing the steels that the gates hang off plus seating the control units in the ground. We had block pillars built and rendered by others and the gates were measured, made and hung after that.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

We had our two pairs of gates (drive is in and out) professionally made & installed and it was not cheap but they did a great job and there was a lot of work in it, so hat off to @nod doing it solo.

 

The motors, controllers & remotes are CAME.

 

Agree that the electrical side of things looks straight forward  - we also have an induction loop for exit and an intercom for visitors.

 

Most of the work was trenching in cable runs and setting out and fixing the steels that the gates hang off plus seating the control units in the ground. We had block pillars built and rendered by others and the gates were measured, made and hung after that.

 

 

Yes already built and rendered the pillars 

I expected them to be expensive

We thought about £3500 ish

But where amazed at double that 

Our experience was most of the gate foundry’s didn’t want to get involved with the automated side 

Leaving one company to corner the market 

Came are a great product 

 

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The thing with electric gates is safety so any installer will need good insurance as they can be extremely dangerous things if not set up correctly. A professional installer will be charging for that, plus they are the sort of thing that can be mishandled resulting in a fairly high number of customer call outs during the warranty period, again something an installer needs to factor into their quote. There have been a number of deaths caused by them, of children in particular. Installers or those performing maintenance have been prosecuted as a result. 

 

https://reynoldstraining.com/health-and-safety-articles/firms-prosecuted-after-child-crushed-to-death-by-electric-gate/

 

Plus an example of where the home owner was felt to be the negligent party as the gates had not been maintained adequately. 

 

https://www.electric-gates.com/2017/01/09/electric-gates-law/

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, newhome said:

The thing with electric gates is safety so any installer will need good insurance as they can be extremely dangerous things if not set up correctly. A professional installer will be charging for that, plus they are the sort of thing that can be mishandled resulting in a fairly high number of customer call outs during the warranty period, again something an installer needs to factor into their quote. There have been a number of deaths caused by them, of children in particular. Installers or those performing maintenance have been prosecuted as a result. 

 

https://reynoldstraining.com/health-and-safety-articles/firms-prosecuted-after-child-crushed-to-death-by-electric-gate/

 

Plus an example of where the home owner was felt to be the negligent party as the gates had not been maintained adequately. 

 

https://www.electric-gates.com/2017/01/09/electric-gates-law/

 

 

 

Totally agree there when say I had a day fitting 

For about a month I fine tuned 

Though I can’t Fault Came Slightest obstacle they stop and open again 

The garage door I fitted was a similar setup  

 

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Gates are good for privacy and will deter the opportunist who may wander in but pretty useless against the determined thief.

 

Our gate reset code is still the default - i pointed this out to the installer and he agreed this was poor security but then pointed out that it would be easy to pop out the panel with a screwdriver and short the connections to open the gate. 

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