The gate is the only part of the fence that moves.

Why a gate is not just a piece of fence on hinges

Every other section of a fence stands still. A gate is opened and closed thousands of times, hangs its whole weight off two or three points, and gets pushed by every gust that hits it. A leaf built like the panel next to it will sag, and once a gate has racked out of square it does not come back on its own.

So the frame comes first. The leaf is built as a frame that resists twisting, and the infill goes on it afterward to match the fence. Hinges get sized for the weight, not for the look, and the gate post goes deeper and heavier than the line posts either side of it.

Custom fabrication is one of the six services listed on our Google profile, and this is most of what it means in practice. An opening that is not a standard width, a leaf that has to clear a slope, or hardware that has to satisfy an inspector.

• Gate post set deeper and heavier than the line posts
• Leaf built as a frame first, infill matched to the fence after
• Hinges sized to the weight of the leaf
• Drop rod on double gates so the closed leaf is not carrying the latch
• Swung, latched and adjusted with you before we leave

Wide openings, mowers and trailers

The most common regret we hear about is a gate that is too narrow. A three foot garden gate is fine until the day you need a zero turn, a mini excavator or a trailer into the back yard, and then it is a fence panel you have to take apart.

Past a certain width a single leaf starts to sag whatever you do, because the load on the hinge grows faster than the frame can resist. The honest answer is a double gate with a drop rod into a sleeve in the ground, so the closed leaf is held by the ground instead of by the latch.

Tell us at the estimate what has to get through and how wide it is. It is a small change on the day we build it and a large one afterwards.

Pool gates and hardware that has to satisfy an inspector

A pool gate has rules that a garden gate does not. It has to swing away from the water, close itself from any position, latch itself when it closes, and put the latch high enough that a child cannot work it. Those are hardware decisions, and the wrong hardware turns a finished fence into a failed inspection.

We fit self closing hinges and self latching hardware on pool runs as standard and set the closer so it actually closes from a small opening, not just from wide open. A closer that only works when the gate is thrown hard is a closer that passes a lazy test and fails a real one.

One customer came to us in a time crunch to pass a homeowners insurance inspection after a pool install, and wrote afterwards that our knowledge of pool fencing requirements was incredibly helpful. That knowledge mostly lives in the gate.

Matching what is already there

Plenty of gate work is replacement. The fence is fine, the gate has racked, sagged or been hit, and everything either side of it needs to be left alone. That means matching board width, picket spacing, rail height and post size on a fence that was built by somebody else, possibly years ago.

New wood will not match weathered wood on day one. It greys in over a season or two. We say that out loud, and if it matters to you, staining the new leaf to sit closer is an option.

If the gate has failed because the post has moved rather than because the leaf gave up, we say that too. Rehanging a good gate on a bad post buys a few months.