We recently had a new fence built and the builder was going to do a simple iron single hinged 14' driveway gate for us as part of a separate quote from our fence. He's since ghosted us on the gate, so I've been looking for another installer. I'm halfway between CS and Tomball out in no man's land, so everyone I've talked to says I'm out of their area.

How difficult are these to install on your own? I'd need to sink a post, hang the gate, then install the opener I have an electrical outlet on the corner of the house ~25' away, so I'd hard wire the motor or at least use a battery and put a trickle charger on it to keep it as fresh as possible.

555-PINF said:

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We recently had a new fence built and the builder was going to do a simple iron single hinged 14' driveway gate for us as part of a separate quote from our fence. He's since ghosted us on the gate, so I've been looking for another installer. I'm halfway between CS and Tomball out in no man's land, so everyone I've talked to says I'm out of their area.

How difficult are these to install on your own? I'd need to sink a post, hang the gate, then install the opener I have an electrical outlet on the corner of the house ~25' away, so I'd hard wire the motor or at least use a battery and put a trickle charger on it to keep it as fresh as possible.

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I have a heavy, custom made 16 foot gate.
The actuator and controller box are very simple installs if you are comfortable with tools.
A bit of work setting keypad post, burying conduit and cable, burying vehicle sensor, setting gate post, welding it all up. Painting all the welds.

The gate will pull the gate post over unless you H brace or angle brace the gate post.
My gate post is 10" pipe set in concrete 54" deep
H braced in one direction with angle braced set at 90 degrees. All welded , set in concrete.

Do you already have the gate frame and just need to finish installation? Your answer will dictate just how involved the next steps are. It's totally doable, but expect a little welding at a minimum, and potentially a lot if you're starting from scratch.

Many of the challenges also depend on the operator you buy and personal preference. For instance:

• Some operators have an internal battery, and can accept power from a solar panel, so little to no electrical hard wiring involved. We had too much shade for this. Most have a battery option, so you wouldn't need a tender, just a power source to keep the battery charged. Liftmaster has a good solar set-up, but you pay for it.
• Totally personal preference, but I wouldn't spend the effort on a pole mounted keypad, since you can pair them with a garage door opener. Some have openers great app support so you can even open them with your phone.

I custom fabricated and installed a 38' sliding gate, so there will be some differences from a 14' swing gate, but I learned a lot doing it myself. Thread here with some of my lessons learned at the bottom of page 2: Link. One of the best things I did before starting was driving around and looking at as many gates as I could before I settled on my own design. One big lesson that I learned at other people's expense - there were a few different configurations to the frame and most of them were not designed well for the typical wind we have in this area. There were a few that had a good steel design in theory, but depended on welds for the strength and failed over a few years. I mitigated by using the steel member for strength, instead of my welds. The point being, look for failure points on gates in your style and in your environment, and don't repeat their mistakes.

Good luck