Driveway Gates in Lake Los Angeles, CA

Setback first, gate second. The county figure attaches to the required front yard, meaning the setback strip along the road, not your entire frontage and not the rest of the parcel. Hang the gate at the road and it sits inside that strip. Hang it behind the setback line and the front yard figure for a fence is no longer the one in play, though how the county reads that for a gate is a question for county planning. How deep that strip runs on your Lake Los Angeles parcel comes off the parcel record or a call to county planning, and it is the first number we want at the measure.

Pulling the gate in from the road pays off a second way on a big Lake Los Angeles lot. A truck with a trailer can get fully off the road before the leaf starts moving, instead of waiting half in the lane. If you still want something at the road itself, a low open run can mark the line there while the tall secured line and the gate sit behind it.

Width sizes the steel. A leaf hangs off its post the way a shelf hangs off a bracket, and what the post feels is the weight of the leaf times how far that weight reaches out. Make the opening wider and the load on the post grows faster than the width does. Splitting the opening into a pair puts half the reach on each post. In what we typically build, a single swing leaf goes out to roughly 16 feet before the opening gets split.

Ground decides swing or slide. A pair of swing leaves needs clear arc room on the inside and a drive close to level through that arc, or the bottom rail drags as the leaf opens. A slide gate needs a clear stretch of fence beside the opening, about the gate width again, to park in. On a dirt or sand drive in Lake Los Angeles a slide track collects grit, and grit packed into the roller groove is a common reason a slide starts dragging.

Solid or open changes the post again. A solid steel face catches the full push of the wind and hands it to the post and footing, while open picket lets most of the air through. In loose Lake Los Angeles ground we set gate posts at least 36 inches into concrete and go deeper under a wide leaf or a solid face. That figure is this shop's practice rather than anything a code sets.

Decide about a motor now, even if it is years off. We size the frame, hinges and posts for the extra load and weld a sleeve through the post while it is still on the bench, so wiring has a path later. The day an operator goes on, UL 325 and ASTM F2200 reach that gate. The operator, its electronics and its wiring come from other trades. The steel they bolt to comes from us.

This work runs out of our shop on Division Street in Lancaster. Read the full driveway gates details, or call (818) 220-8704 and we will come out.