Custom Wooden Gates

The property

A 1990 property in Hidden Hills. Wide driveway entrance, sloping approach, and a pair of masonry piers already in place from a previous gate that had been removed. The clear opening was wide enough that a single leaf was never an option.

What the client asked for

A pair of custom timber gates to match the fencing, hung on the existing piers, that would not sag. She was specific about the sag, because the previous gates had dropped enough that they scraped the driveway and had to be lifted by hand to close.

What we found on site

The reason the old gates had failed was not the timber. The hinges had been fixed into the face of the pier with expansion anchors set into the masonry facing rather than into anything structural behind it, and the work had not been done to any technology: no through-fixing, no consideration of the pull-out load, and the top hinge sitting far too low so the leverage on it was much higher than it needed to be. The anchors had gradually worked loose in the masonry, which let the top of each gate lean out, which is what makes a gate scrape. We also found the driveway rises across the opening, so a gate hung dead level would foul the slab at the closing edge.

How we worked, in order

1. Established what the piers were actually built of and what was structurally behind the facing, before designing the fixing.
2. Set the hinge positions properly, top hinge high and bottom hinge low, to reduce the leverage on the upper fixing. Hinge geometry does more for sag resistance than gate weight does.
3. Fixed with fasteners specifically selected for the substrate and the pull-out load, through-fixed into structure rather than anchored into the masonry facing. This is the single change that fixes the original failure.
4. Built the leaves with proper corner joinery and a diagonal brace running from the bottom hinge corner up towards the latch side, so the gate hangs from the hinge rather than pulling away from it.
5. Set the closing edge to the actual fall of the driveway so the gates clear the slab through their whole swing instead of only when open.
6. Prepared and finished the timber on all faces including the top and bottom edges and the end grain, before hanging. End grain is where a timber gate takes on water and starts to move.
7. Hung, adjusted, and set the stops and the drop bolt, then checked the swing and the latch alignment again after a week.

The decision we are proud of

Through-fixing the hinges into structure instead of reusing the existing anchor positions in the masonry facing. Reusing the old holes would have been faster, the client would never have seen the difference, and the gates would have started leaning again within a couple of years, because the original failure was in the fixing, not in the gate. A gate is a lever with a long arm and a very short one. Everything about whether it sags is decided by what the short arm is bolted to.

The finishing detail nobody sees

We finish the top and bottom edges and all end grain before the gate is ever hung. Most timber gates are finished on the two faces you can see, and then they take on water through the exposed edges, move with the seasons, and start binding on the latch. It adds a day to the schedule and it is the reason a timber gate still closes properly in its fifth winter.