Electric Gate Repair London: Fast Fixes for Damaged Gates
We regularly repair gates that have been broken or have suffered over the years.
Automatic gates open and close to let vehicles through. Sometimes impact from a careless drivers damages the gates and their vehicle in the process.
If there are problems with how the gate motors or other part of the automation system are working, people may resort to pushing the gates. When they can’t force easily the gates, they may resort to extreme measures to get in or out. And this usually damages the gates.
Have your driveway gates been damaged?
Contact us now for gate repairs.
Call 0800 195 1470 for a chat or use the form to give us more details about the damage to your gates.
We repair all types of wooden and metal automated gates. Our services are professional but priced reasonably.
How Can We Help?
Impact Damage To Gates
One way that gates get damaged is when commercial vehicles hit them. A bin lorry or Amazon van will get a few dents but the gates will get damaged too.
If anything has been set up incorrectly, it may be possible for automatic gates to hit a car parked on a driveway or one entering through the gates. This is unusual with correctly set up and installed electric gates. However, some gate installers rely on safety edges as their only method of making electric gates safe. Unfortunately, safety edges only work when they hit an obstacle.
Damage can be different depending on what your gates are made from. Wooden gates may predominantly suffer panel damage rather than damage to thicker frame uprights and crossbars. Sections of aluminium gates are easily replaced but as they are hollow, they can be dented if hit by a vehicle. Iron gates are extremely tough, but a big impact will bend them.
With impacts from vehicles, the damage may not be limited to the gates. The gates posts, pillars, piers or support may be damaged. Tracks and wheels sliding gates move on may be bent, broken or moved out of line. Carefully aligned underground gate motors and rams can be knocked out of alignment.
Wooden Gate Problems
Wooden gates need more repairing than some metal gates because they suffer from rot, twisting, shrinking/expanding and cracking.
The problem is water. If water penetrates the treated wood, it provide the perfect environment for the mold and fungi to grow and rot the wood. It also causes wooden gates to swell as they absorb water in wet weather. As they increase in size, they pull bolts and other fixings through their holes and they push against neigbouring sections. When the weather improves and your wooden gates dry out, they shrink back. Now the bolts that were pulled through their holes are loose and the joints have opened up.
Loose bolts can also cause wooden gates to drop as their hinge bolts are no longer tight. Now the gates aren’t properly aligned and motors may struggle to open and close the gates, particularly if they now drag along along the driveway.
Along with impact damage from vehicles, wooden gates need the most maintenance to avoid damage due to weathering.
Issues With Metal Gates
Metal gates are usually ornate iron or steel gates or made from aluminium. Rust is the big issue for iron gates but steel gates are much more rust resistant. Aluminium gates do oxidise slightly but much more slowly and with less damage than rust in iron gates.
Painting the surface of iron gates to ensure that water can’t get to bare metal helps. Aluminium gates have a tough outer coating that gives then their colour. This prevents water getting to the metal but also needs to be penetrated to add fixing points for motor arms and hinges.
Aluminium gates are much lighter than heavy iron and steel gates but this means that they’re more susceptible to dents from vehicles. It takes a big impact to damage iron gates but they are also harder to repair than sectional aluminium gates. While an aluminium gate can be partially disassembled to replace damaged sections, iron gates usually need welding repairs.
Repairing Damaged Gates
If your gates are broken, it’s possible that the gate motors, their arms, linkages, gears or housings are also damaged. The whole automation system will need to be checked for obvious and hidden issues caused when the damage was done.
Damaged driveway gates need to be checked by a qualified and experienced gate installer and repaired as soon as possible. Firstly, you need to know how and why the gates got bent, broken or knocked out of alignment or off their tracks. A good gate engineer will assess what caused the problem, how to fix it and how to avoid it happening again.
Get in Touch for Fast Electric Gate Repairs in London
Finally, gates with broken sections, bent uprights, rot or rust look ugly. Electric driveway gates make a statement but if they have been damaged in an accident, they probably don’t work properly, they may be dented, broken, bent or missing paint. They could be working but dragging across the driveway or making terrible noises, and there could be hidden issues that make them dangerous.
Getting damaged gates repaired quickly is the priority as any damage to your driveway gates could be causing problems with the gate automation system as a whole.
If you need to get damaged gates repaired, call us now on 0800 195 1470 for an initial chat.
Areas We Cover For Gate Repairs
If you need repairs for your gates, please check the area we cover on our map. This is determined by how quickly we can help on an emergency call out. If you are just outside the circle on the map, please call 0800 195 1470 or email info@egrl.co.uk and check if we can still help.
We cover:
Central London, North West London, West London and South West London
Berkshire
Buckinghamshire
Surrey
Hertfordshire
Electric Gate Repair London Covers This Area
