Electric Gates

Automated driveway gates, and — more often — gates built so they can be automated whenever you are ready. The motors are the straightforward part. What decides the cost, and whether automation is worth doing at all, is the groundwork underneath and the gate itself.

What automating a gate actually involves

Worth knowing before you ask anyone for a price, because the quote that comes back is usually bigger than people expect and the reason is rarely the motors.

The motors are the small part

A pair of swing arms or an underground kit is a modest share of the job. Most of the cost is everything around them: getting power to the gate, the control gear, the safety equipment, and the groundwork to put it all in without leaving a trench across a finished drive.

Power has to reach the gate

An armoured supply run from the house or the consumer unit to the gate posts, which on most properties means lifting and reinstating part of the drive. This single item is usually the difference between a quote someone expects and the one they get. It is also the one thing that gets dramatically cheaper if the ducting goes in when the drive is already up.

A powered gate is treated as a machine

Not a gate with a motor on it. That means safety edges, photocells, force testing and documentation, and it is the reason a proper installation costs what it does. It is also why we will not simply bolt a kit onto an existing gate and walk away.

Who does what

The gate, the posts and the groundwork are ours. Several fabricators on our network offer automation alongside it, working with a qualified electrician for the supply and the connection. Where that is the case in your area we will say so at survey — and where it is not, we will tell you that too rather than quietly subcontracting it.

The option most people actually take

A good number of people who search for electric gates do not end up automating on day one. That is not a failed enquiry — it is usually the right decision, and it only works if the gate is built for it from the start.

A gate built ready for automation

Made to the weight and specification a motor needs, hung on posts sized for the load, with ducting run under the drive while the drive is open and a drop bolt and slam plate positioned so they will not foul a motor later. It works perfectly well by hand and stays a straightforward job for an installer whenever you decide.

The bit that is expensive to undo

Ducting. Putting a conduit under a drive before it is made good costs very little. Getting a cable under a finished block-paved drive two years later means taking it up and relaying it, and that one item can cost more than the motors. If there is any chance you will automate, this is the decision to get right now.

Why it is worth saying out loud

If the budget does not stretch to full automation this year, the alternative is not a cheaper motor — it is a better gate now and motors later. A gate that was never built for it has to be replaced or reworked before it can be automated at all, which is the expensive version of the same conversation.

And if you do want it automated now

Then the survey covers the same ground either way: where the power comes from, what the ground will allow, whether the drive suits swing or sliding, and what the safety equipment has to do. The gate specification does not change. Only the timing does.

Swing, sliding or cantilever — the drive decides

Automation narrows the choice more than a manual gate does, because a motor needs a predictable path and level ground to work against.

Swing gates

The default, and the cheapest to automate. They need a flat, clear run the depth of each leaf. If the drive rises away from the road the gate grounds before it is fully open, and a motor will keep pushing against it — which is how automated swing gates on sloping drives fail.

Sliding on a track

Runs parallel to the boundary on a ground track. It needs a clear run alongside at least as long as the gate, and the track has to stay clear — a sliding gate stops working the moment the track fills with gravel or leaves. It suits drives with no room to swing and drives that slope up from the road.

Cantilever

Carried on a counterbalance rather than a ground track, so nothing crosses the opening. More expensive and it needs a longer run alongside, but it is the answer on uneven or sloping ground where a track would never sit true, and on drives that have to stay clear for drainage.

Access — how it opens matters as much as what opens it

Handsets are the default. A keypad suits a gate several people use without carrying anything. An intercom lets you see who is there before opening. All of it is decided at the same survey, and all of it wants the ducting sorted first.

Sliding — closed across the opening

The runback — the clear length a slider needs

Part open — nothing swings into the drive

Swing — the cheapest to automate, if the ground is flat

What it costs, and what makes the difference

Nobody can price this from a photograph

And anyone who does is guessing at the groundwork. The gate itself is the predictable part; the run from the power source, the ground it crosses and what has to be reinstated afterwards are not. That is why the survey is free and why the quote is written rather than given over the phone.

The order of magnitude

Automation typically adds meaningfully more to a job than most people assume, and the gap between automating at build time and retrofitting later is larger still. We would rather set that expectation at the first conversation than at the quote.

What affects the cost

Gate prices move on a handful of variables rather than a fixed rate. The main ones are:

FAQs about electric gates

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