How to fit a gate

[CrouchingWayne]

I'm looking to fit a gate (c.75cm wide, will get very light use) at the side of the house - one post will be on a harl wall (my house) and the other on an existing fence.

A few of questions:

1) How to attach a post to the harl wall - use masonry drill bit a few mm narrower than my fitting and drive in masonry bolt seem like a sensible approach?

2) If so, how many cm into the wall should I aim for the fixing to penetrate?

3) On the existing fence the gate will be around 18-24 inches away from the post that is concreted into the ground. Can I simply attach the gate post to an existing slat, or do I need to drive the gate post into the ground? I would rather avoid that as the ground isn't ideal to work with.

Thanks!

[Pickled Piper]

Have look on youtube. Some posts on exactly this type of installation.

[sospan]

Several years ago I fitted a half height home made gate to the side path. The hinge post was Fixed to a block wall with heavy duty screws to half the block depth. The opposite latch post similarly fixed to the house wall. Spring loaded hinges to close it to stop the dogs getting out.
Made from treated timber for decking balustrades. Absolutely solid after 12 years and 2 recoats of fence type paint.

[hobbiniho1]

could you not just fix the gate hinges directly to the house? if not i would use thunderbolts to fix the gatepost to your house, as it will be fixed to the house it only needs to be something like a 4x2 there is no need to fit a big square post unless you want it to match the rest of the fence, for a thickness of a 4x2 you would need an 8x100 or 10x100 thunderbolt. depending on how strong the original fence is will determine if you need to concrete in a new post or not

[CrouchingWayne]

Hi guys thanks for the responses.

I've looked on YouTube but couldn't see any where they did NOT add a new gate post into the ground unfortunately. Have you got any links? A video would be great if so.

The fence is c.6 years old - put in by the house builder. Seems pretty solid. The hinge is going on a post to match existing gates otherwise hinges on the house would be an option.

The location is around 8-12" away from an existing concrete post, thinking I could get away without putting in another one hopefully

[Andehh]

CrouchingWayne said:

Hi guys thanks for the responses.

I've looked on YouTube but couldn't see any where they did NOT add a new gate post into the ground unfortunately. Have you got any links? A video would be great if so.

The fence is c.6 years old - put in by the house builder. Seems pretty solid. The hinge is going on a post to match existing gates otherwise hinges on the house would be an option.

The location is around 8-12" away from an existing concrete post, thinking I could get away without putting in another one hopefully

I made a right pigs ear of this a few weeks ago, when hanging my homemade gate. At 1m wide and nearly 2.5m tall it was very heavy and aligning the 4 ''heavy duty'' hinges was a total nightmare.


Buy some good quality Fischer Rawl Plugs & M8 bolts, like these:

Rawl Plugs:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/fischer-high-performance...

You will need a good quality hammer drill/SDS drill. Set the depth to match the raw plugs (50-60mm).

Prop the gate up on bricks, at a height you desire, ensuring it is level & standing true. The more accurate you are at this stage the better!

Line hinges with wall/post, using a felt marker dot the location of each hole.

Move gate to one side

Using a long straight bit of wood/spirit level ensure the holes are all lined up.

Drill holes, drop in rawl plugs, helping hands to hold the gate/proper it back up on bricks & screw it home!

[M3ax]

I bolted ours straight to the wall and dropped in a post near the hedge.

[M3ax]

Obviously, when I say "wall" I mean "floor". Bloody phones

[4Q]

You mentioned in the op that it's a harl wall, it that the same as render? If so you want to fix into the brick/block behind it as the render will just pull straight off the wall as soon as you put load on it. Most wall plugs won't be deep enough so you're better off chem-fixing threaded bar/studs as you can go deeper and you won't risk bursting the render or bricks as you would with an expansion fixing like a rawlbolt. It's dead easy to do, just make sure you blow all the dust out of the hole after you've drilled it.

[Andehh]

4Q said:

You mentioned in the op that it's a harl wall, it that the same as render? If so you want to fix into the brick/block behind it as the render will just pull straight off the wall as soon as you put load on it. Most wall plugs won't be deep enough so you're better off chem-fixing threaded bar/studs as you can go deeper and you won't risk bursting the render or bricks as you would with an expansion fixing like a rawlbolt. It's dead easy to do, just make sure you blow all the dust out of the hole after you've drilled it.

Very good point, you are quite right. Resin fixing bolts arnt a hardship in themselves, but have a smaller margin of error for aligning!