Gate automation / What Gates?
Discussion
Redoing the boundaries of our cottage, including removing an asbestos single garage and a rickety bit of gate / fence and recreating a proper access and a driveway.
Hard to describe, but the garage is set back from the tiny road and we have right of way over a bit of land belonging to next door in order to reach it. We plan to remove the garage (which is face on(ish) to the road) put up a gatepost roughly where the corner of the garage was, and create a diagonal set of gates wide enough to turn into, creating a driveway which is perpendicular to the garage.
Sorry for the lousy doodle:
But I've drawn round our land in magenta, marked next door's right of way with green, and our right of way (different next door) with a blue brush. I've marked in yellow the garage which is coming down.
This is what I think we are aiming for:
Where our ROW is shown in magenta this time, i've drawn in diagonal gates in blue, and in white is a driveway with a magenta car on it, and made it 'L' shaped to give a turning cycle so you can get in/out of the drive without having to reverse back down the ROW.
The width of those blue diagonal gates is 16ft, and because of where the left-hand gate needs to push back against, and because we want to make that side work ok for pedestrian access, I want to split the gates so the left is 4ft and the right is 12ft
Even on an angle, I think 16ft is more than big enough to get a car through! We'll make the drive gravel and then landscape around it, leaving a border 2 slabs wide along the fence to provide path / ROW.
My 'concern' (this is a holiday cottage / 2nd home) is partly one of security - I don't want the gates opened and left open, so I would like to lock them. Existing gate locks so neighbour with a ROW is already fine about that. I also want us (and guests) to use this drive to park on, and not obstruct the small road at the front, or park on our ROW which we don't actually own... so although automating the gates is possibly a little unnecessary, at least it will mean they self-close and access can be restricted, and if they are easy enough to open people are more likely to park there.
Gates will likely be full height and timber to match surrounding fences. Considered 5-bar but just wouldn't look right given the fence type.
So can anyone recommend a supplier of split gates, especially that can be automated?
Can anyone recommend a good value automation system that will work well with large split gates, and help me think about / decide on an access system? I'm thinking a keypad (since guests would lose a fob) on outside then I can give a PIN to the neighbour who needs to use the ROW (be better if this PIN only opened one gate!) and then PINs for guests to open both gates. I don't mind having a fob then I can open them without leaving the car! From the inside, either another identical keypad or possibly just a release button.
Our oil tank is next to the garage so we plan to move it as part of this work, but also want to be able to give the PIN to the oil delivery guys to make unattended deliveries since this is so much easier for us...
Any recommendations?
Hard to describe, but the garage is set back from the tiny road and we have right of way over a bit of land belonging to next door in order to reach it. We plan to remove the garage (which is face on(ish) to the road) put up a gatepost roughly where the corner of the garage was, and create a diagonal set of gates wide enough to turn into, creating a driveway which is perpendicular to the garage.
Sorry for the lousy doodle:
But I've drawn round our land in magenta, marked next door's right of way with green, and our right of way (different next door) with a blue brush. I've marked in yellow the garage which is coming down.
This is what I think we are aiming for:
Where our ROW is shown in magenta this time, i've drawn in diagonal gates in blue, and in white is a driveway with a magenta car on it, and made it 'L' shaped to give a turning cycle so you can get in/out of the drive without having to reverse back down the ROW.
The width of those blue diagonal gates is 16ft, and because of where the left-hand gate needs to push back against, and because we want to make that side work ok for pedestrian access, I want to split the gates so the left is 4ft and the right is 12ft
Even on an angle, I think 16ft is more than big enough to get a car through! We'll make the drive gravel and then landscape around it, leaving a border 2 slabs wide along the fence to provide path / ROW.
My 'concern' (this is a holiday cottage / 2nd home) is partly one of security - I don't want the gates opened and left open, so I would like to lock them. Existing gate locks so neighbour with a ROW is already fine about that. I also want us (and guests) to use this drive to park on, and not obstruct the small road at the front, or park on our ROW which we don't actually own... so although automating the gates is possibly a little unnecessary, at least it will mean they self-close and access can be restricted, and if they are easy enough to open people are more likely to park there.
Gates will likely be full height and timber to match surrounding fences. Considered 5-bar but just wouldn't look right given the fence type.
So can anyone recommend a supplier of split gates, especially that can be automated?
Can anyone recommend a good value automation system that will work well with large split gates, and help me think about / decide on an access system? I'm thinking a keypad (since guests would lose a fob) on outside then I can give a PIN to the neighbour who needs to use the ROW (be better if this PIN only opened one gate!) and then PINs for guests to open both gates. I don't mind having a fob then I can open them without leaving the car! From the inside, either another identical keypad or possibly just a release button.
Our oil tank is next to the garage so we plan to move it as part of this work, but also want to be able to give the PIN to the oil delivery guys to make unattended deliveries since this is so much easier for us...
Any recommendations?
Are you completely against the five-bar gates? We have a 16' opening covered by two automated 8' gates and they look great in my opinion.
We looked into solid wood gates and they can look very oppressive when you get to 16' of width. You've also got to seriously beef up the gateposts, groundworks and the automation equipment in order to cope with the extra weight. When you start factoring in the problems with wind on solid gates it really gets expensive and challenging.
Price wise; we were quoted £5000 by a company for five-bar gates and about £8000 for solid. I decided to do it myself and managed it for about £2000 all in.
We looked into solid wood gates and they can look very oppressive when you get to 16' of width. You've also got to seriously beef up the gateposts, groundworks and the automation equipment in order to cope with the extra weight. When you start factoring in the problems with wind on solid gates it really gets expensive and challenging.
Price wise; we were quoted £5000 by a company for five-bar gates and about £8000 for solid. I decided to do it myself and managed it for about £2000 all in.
Crumpet said:
Are you completely against the five-bar gates? We have a 16' opening covered by two automated 8' gates and they look great in my opinion.
We looked into solid wood gates and they can look very oppressive when you get to 16' of width. You've also got to seriously beef up the gateposts, groundworks and the automation equipment in order to cope with the extra weight. When you start factoring in the problems with wind on solid gates it really gets expensive and challenging.
Price wise; we were quoted £5000 by a company for five-bar gates and about £8000 for solid. I decided to do it myself and managed it for about £2000 all in.
Our gardener / maintenence chap suggested 5-bar gates but with all the surrounding fences being 6ft panels into concrete posts, I didn't think they would look right.We looked into solid wood gates and they can look very oppressive when you get to 16' of width. You've also got to seriously beef up the gateposts, groundworks and the automation equipment in order to cope with the extra weight. When you start factoring in the problems with wind on solid gates it really gets expensive and challenging.
Price wise; we were quoted £5000 by a company for five-bar gates and about £8000 for solid. I decided to do it myself and managed it for about £2000 all in.
We're looking at 8" posts I think but if automation adds a huge amount to the cost (bearing in mind this isn't main residence) then it may be the thing which gets left off, even though I think the auto-closing is the best 'security' to prevent people just leaving them open.
Hmmm... decisions decisions!
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