Free on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
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AfterFast, Reliable Gate Installation Across Los Angeles
Gate installation in Los Angeles is different from anywhere else in the country. We know this because we’ve been welding, hanging, and retrofitting gates across LA’s sprawl since 2001. A driveway gate in Hancock Park faces different demands than one in the Valley, and a hillside swing gate in Beachwood Canyon has code requirements most cities never think about. If your gate is sagging, failing, or simply done, we’re the ones who show up and fix it right. Call (559) 844-6989 and Hal Gatewood himself will talk you through it.
We’re not a franchise. We’re not a call center. The name on the shop is Hal Gatewood’s, and the shop is down the road. That’s the oldest accountability there is.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Los Angeles’s Preferred Gate Installation Company
Gate Repair in Los Angeles homeowners have a right to be skeptical. They’ve watched national outfits quote one price over the phone and hand them another at the door. That doesn’t happen here. Every price is agreed before we touch a wrench, and the 90-Day Done Right Promise is stamped in writing on every job. If it’s not done right, we make it right. One call brings Hal back. No runaround.
We’re owner-operated and have been since day one. Hal Gatewood answers the phone at all hours, and he’s the same person who shows up with the crew. Los Angeles customers regularly comment on that: they call about a gate that won’t close over a sleepy Saturday morning, and a real person picks up. No voicemail, no queue. Background-checked, uniformed technicians on every job, and all of us work under Hal’s name.
We also understand what drives gate failures in Los Angeles specifically. The marine layer that hangs over the Westside and South Bay pushes salt-laden air inland, eating through hinge posts and pitting wrought iron. The seismic creep under the Santa Monica Mountains shifts post footings out of plumb, throwing swing gates off their geometry and jamming sliding tracks. These aren’t hypotheticals to us. We see them weekly, from Culver City up through the canyon roads.
Our Gate Installation Services in Los Angeles
Our Gate Installation team handles everything from a simple pedestrian gate to full driveway automation. Here’s what we do most often in Los Angeles.
Swing Gate Installation
Swing gates are the classic Los Angeles look, especially on the 1920s and 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival homes in Hancock Park and Los Feliz. We build and install single and double swing gates in steel, iron, aluminum, or a mixed wood-and-steel assembly. The critical part in LA is the hinge post: between seismic movement and clay-soil expansion in the Valley, a post set in shallow or undersized concrete will drift within a few years. We set footings deeper than typical, because out here, drifting posts aren’t just an inconvenience. They’re the reason most swing gates fail.
Sliding Gate Installation
Sliding gates are most common on narrower lots or driveways with a steep grade, where a swing gate would have no room to travel. These are the workhorses of San Fernando Valley ranch tracts, which use tubular steel sliding gates on concrete pads. The problem is that expansive clay soils under those pads shift every wet-dry cycle, and any earthquake shifts them more. We install sliding gates with adjustable track systems and properly reinforced pads so the gate doesn’t jump the rail after the next temblor.
Double Gate Installation
Double driveway gates, often called estate gates, are popular in the canyon neighborhoods where lots are wide and the gate was built to match the architecture. We install pairs from lightweight decorative iron to heavy steel gates with automated operators. When one leaf of a double gate sags or drifts, the operator strains against the imbalance until it fails. Our crews fabricate and install double gates with matched leaf weight and post reinforcement from the start, and we provide Gate Parts & Welding in Los Angeles on site, so the gate stays in your driveway while we work.
Pedestrian Gate Installation
Walk gates alongside the driveway or in a garden wall need the same care as the wider spans. We hang pedestrian gates in wood, steel, and ornate wrought iron to match the existing house. Many older pedestrian gates in LA neighborhoods like Windsor Square or Beachwood Canyon were hung before modern hinge hardware existed. We replace the hanging hardware, true the gate to the jamb, and set a proper latch. It’s the kind of repair-first work most companies won’t touch; they’d rather replace the whole panel and bill you for it.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Los Angeles
We’re certified to service nine major gate operators, and we stock common parts locally, so you’re not waiting a week on a backordered control board. Los Angeles customers with legacy systems frequently need us for Doorking service in Los Angeles on old operators that never die quietly, or Viking boards that have been fighting a power surge since 2009. We also install new LiftMaster and Linear operators every week, and we can retrofit a Ghost Controls system to a gate that’s been manually opened since the day it was hung. If the operator still works, we fix it. If it’s obsolete, we tell you straight what a replacement costs and what your options actually are.
Common Gate Installation Problems We See in Los Angeles Homes
- Corroded hinge posts and rust-pitted iron from the marine layer. The salt air that drifts inland through the Westside and South Bay eats the metal that holds gates up. We’ve replaced hinge posts in Santa Monica that crumbled in our hands, and we’ve welded new ears onto wrought-iron panels pitted so thin you could poke a finger through. In LA, painting over rust isn’t maintenance. It’s just delaying the collapse.
- Shifted post footings from seismic ground movement. Gravity and earthquakes are always working on any gate in Los Angeles. We see swing gates hanging a half inch low because the post migrated after a minor quake nobody even noticed. The gate still looked fine, but the operator was fighting that extra drag every single cycle. That’s the chronic strain that kills motors years before their time.
- Missing or outdated entrapment protection. A lot of gates in Los Angeles were hung before UL 325 safety standards existed. There are no photocells, no edge sensors, and a two-hundred-pound gate that’ll close on a kid in the driveway. If you’re replacing an operator on a pre-UL 325 gate, the law says the new install has to meet current entrapment protection standards. We install the safety gear every time.
- Obsolete operators with dead control boards. Some of these gates in Los Feliz and the Hollywood Hills still have their original operators from the 1990s. The motors still fire, but the boards are dead and parts are extinct. At some point, the honest answer is that a replacement operator costs less than nursing a 30-year-old board along. We’ll tell you when that day arrives, and we’ll show you the actual numbers.
Pricing for Gate Installation in Los Angeles, CA
A straightforward pedestrian gate installation in Los Angeles runs roughly $850 to $1,900 depending on size, material, and whether we’re hanging it into an existing wall or pouring a new post. A single swing driveway gate in steel or iron typically runs $2,800 to $6,500, while a full automated double driveway gate, including operator, safety edges, photocells, and control, runs $6,500 to $14,000. Sliding gate installs fall in a similar range, usually starting around $3,200 and topping out around $9,000 for a heavy automated unit. Replacement operators run $1,400 to $3,800, including wiring, safety retrotrofits, and setup.
In the hillside fire zones, add $350 to $900 for a Knox-box rapid-entry installation if your property doesn’t already have one. That’s not a markup. It’s a code requirement. Every quote is free, it’s in writing, and the price is agreed before any work starts. If a company won’t put their gate quote in writing before the crew shows up, walk away.
We Also Serve Cities Near Los Angeles
We regularly send crews to Los Angeles from Culver City to Marina del Rey. If you’re in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, or any surrounding neighborhood, we’ll come to you and give you the same written price, same 90-Day Done Right Promise, no trip charge inside the county.
Serving Los Angeles, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Los Angeles area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Gate Installation in Los Angeles
Yes. Beachwood Canyon sits inside an LAFD-designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, which means any automatic gate must have a functioning Knox-box rapid-entry override so fire crews can access the property without dismantling the gate. If you’re replacing a gate or installing a new operator in the hills, this isn’t optional. We install Knox boxes on every fire-zone gate job, and if you have an existing box, we’ll verify it actually works before we call the job done. Call (559) 844-6989 and we’ll tell you exactly what your hillside property requires.
We do it all the time. The trick is using a bolt-on or clamp-style mounting bracket instead of drilling into the original iron, and matching the operator arm to the gate’s weight and travel. In Laurel Canyon, we were called to replace a 1960s swing gate whose original operator had burned out after years of fighting shifted post footings from seismic creep, a common issue for Los Angeles Gate Access Control systems. Our crew set new footings, welded a sag correction to the hinge post, and installed a LiftMaster operator with a safety photocell and a Knox-box rapid-entry override so the LAFD could access the property without forcing the gate. The original iron panel stayed exactly where it had hung for decades. Most original gates can be saved if the post is addressed first.
Because the concrete pad the track sits on has shifted. In the San Fernando Valley, expansive clay soils move constantly with moisture and seismic activity. The pad cracks or tilts a few degrees, the track lifts, and the guide wheels no longer ride where they should. The fix is either re-leveling the existing pad or pouring a new reinforced pad with a deeper edge beam. We see this all along Ventura Boulevard and up into Sherman Oaks. Call (559) 844-6989 for an assessment; if the pad is sound, the repair is often just a track adjustment and wheel replacement.
Almost always repair, if the iron itself is sound. A sagging 1940s gate usually means the hinge post has leaned, the hinge pins have worn, or the frame joints have opened up from decades of use. We weld those joints closed, re-hang the gate on new pins, and square the post. That’s typically $600 to $1,400. Full replacement of a similar-quality wrought-iron gate runs $4,000 to $9,000 or more. If the post is rotted at the base, that’s the one case where repair can creep toward replacement cost, but we’ll show you both numbers in writing before you choose.
Yes. Any new operator installation in Los Angeles must comply with UL 325 entrapment protection standards. That means safety photocells, a reversing mechanism, and edge sensors where the gate’s design calls for them. We include those in every operator quote and install. If an old gate was hung before those rules existed, this is a good reason to upgrade now rather than nursing the old hardware along.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Los Angeles since 2001.