Gate repair in Atlanta for automatic swing and slide gates

A gate that won't open strands a car; one that won't close leaves the property open to the street. We work on powered swing gates hung on linear or articulated arms, sliding gates riding a ground track or cantilever rollers, and every operator and control that moves them.

In the northern suburbs that usually means ornamental aluminum or steel at the end of a long drive, with a keypad at the curb and an intercom up at the house. Intown it's more often a slider across a narrow drive or a courtyard gate beside a townhome.

Whatever the setup, the first look goes to the gate itself, because a gate that binds will ruin any operator bolted to it.

• A hum or a grind from the operator, and no movement.
• Only one leaf of the pair opens.
• The bottom rail scrapes the pavement, or the latch side hits the post.
• Slow to open, worst on cool mornings.
• Keypad dead while the remote works, or the reverse.
• It reverses mid-travel with nothing there, or opens by itself overnight.
• A slider has come off its rollers or climbed out of the track.
• A storm limb or debris is wedged in the track or against a leaf.

Operators are rated for gates that move freely. Once hinges wear, posts lean or rollers seize, the operator fights the gate on every cycle; the force setting creeps upward, safety reversing gets less sensitive, and the motor and gearbox wear out early. The heavier the leaf, the faster that damage builds.

So the operator cover stays on at first. The arm is released, the gate is moved by hand, and hinges, posts, rollers and track all get checked. A gate that swings or slides easily is ready for its operator; one that doesn't needs attention before anything else.

Georgia's red clay plays a big part. It swells after rain and shrinks in a dry spell, and posts set in it can lean further each year until a gate that once hung true starts dragging.

A gate stands out in Georgia weather all year. Humidity rusts hinges, chains and brackets; heat wears down batteries and capacitors; thunderstorms bring surges, falling limbs and debris in the tracks.

Pine limbs are the local specialty: a summer storm drops one across a slider's track or onto a swing leaf, bending the leaf or knocking the limits out.

Heat inside a dark operator housing in August wears batteries out well ahead of schedule.

The ground moves as much as the weather does. Loops cut into a driveway crack as the slab settles, and posts set shallow shift with the seasons.

Fire ants belong on this list too. They're drawn to the warmth inside operator housings and control boxes, and a colony packed across a circuit board can short it. Sealing the openings is part of the repair.

Most gate repairs finish in one visit, because the parts that fail are the parts the truck carries.

1. Tell us the symptomStuck open, stuck shut, dragging, silent or humming, and whether it swings or slides. That's enough to schedule. A photo of the gate and operator helps too.
2. A window padded for trafficNobody waits home all day, and the technician phones on the way. If the gate is standing open, the window moves up.
3. Gate before operatorHinges, rollers, posts and track first, then arm, board, battery, limits and sensors. Anything wrong with the gate itself is fixed before the operator is judged.
4. Tested before we goEyes, loops and the safety reverse are proven with the gate moving. If something has to be ordered, you're told right there. Limits get rechecked after any repair to the arm or chain.

Plenty of calls that begin as a broken gate end as a broken control: a keypad whose board has failed, a receiver that lost its codes, an intercom that no longer rings the house, or a loop that quit sensing cars. Shared gates with long code lists get the old codes cleared.

Safety devices are part of that work. A gate that closes onto a car or a child isn't an inconvenience, so eyes and edges are always repaired and never bypassed.

Where a gate crosses a sidewalk or sits beside a play area, the technician checks that the entrapment protection covers every pinch point, not just the center of the opening.

Gates we service run on Ghost Controls, GTO, FAAC, Elite, Linear, DoorKing, Viking, Nice and Apollo, Mighty Mule, LiftMaster and others, and common parts ride along. If yours isn't listed, a photo of the operator's label lets us check parts before the visit.

Let us know whether any light shows on the operator, whether it's solar or wired, whether it hums or stays quiet, and whether a storm came through right before it stopped. That tells us what to load.

Please don't shove a gate that's still attached to its arm. That bends the arm, strips gears and can tear the operator off its mount. If it's stuck partway, leave it and call.

When it really is the operator

A gate that won't budge, hums, opens partway or ignores every control usually has an operator fault: motor, capacitor, board, power supply, battery or a safety input. A meter finds it, and most are repaired the same day. If the operator really has reached the end, you'll hear why, and what a correctly sized unit would involve, before anything is ordered.

One call sets up an arrival window padded for traffic, and the technician phones on the way. We don't buy leads, and nobody diagnoses a gate by phone.

Estimates are free across the metro.