Adding piers to existing brick wall to hang wooden gates from

[23QDM]

Hi all,

Have recently bought a house with a long double brick wall either side of the driveway. I’d like to get some hardwood gates to secure the front of the property. It has a tarmac driveway all the way to the rear of the property which I don’t want to disturb or dig up in order to get wooden fence posts in.

Is it feasible to add brick piers to an existing wall in order to hang what will be some heavy wooden gates from? I'm thinking they won't be structurally strong enough as if they were put in when the wall was first built.

 

[noseall]

Hi all,

Have recently bought a house with a long double brick wall either side of the driveway. I’d like to get some hardwood gates to secure the front of the property. It has a tarmac driveway all the way to the rear of the property which I don’t want to disturb or dig up in order to get wooden fence posts in.

Is it feasible to add brick piers to an existing wall in order to hang what will be some heavy wooden gates from? I'm thinking they won't be structurally strong enough as if they were put in when the wall was first built.

Large span gates are extremely heavy, especially increased mass when they are swinging. It would require a fully tied in hefty chunk of masonry to resist the gate forces.

We usually concrete in a steel column, fix or weld the hooks to the steel and then brick (clad) around the steel.

 

[23QDM]

Thanks for the reply.

I did think about a steel column but I would have to dig out a fair bit of the tarmac in order to get it deep enough. I'd prefer to not destroy the tarmac or wall if I don't have too.

 

[JohnD]

How big are the gates?

 

[Deluks]

I don't think this can be achieved without a bit of digging. The footprint of a hole needn't be massive if you have a post hole digger and long handled spade. But you will need to dig deep, and put a chunky timber or steel post in. Anything else risks breaking the wall apart.

 

[Scally-Ho]

Thanks for the reply.

I did think about a steel column but I would have to dig out a fair bit of the tarmac in order to get it deep enough. I'd prefer to not destroy the tarmac or wall if I don't have too.

Hire a man with a ground auger and he'll soon provide you with two post holes to a depth of your choice.

 

[Deluks]

Hire a man with a ground auger...

...and a CAT scanner.

I wouldn't like to auger on a front boundary, will be all sorts of crap down there.

 

[^woody^]

The foundation for a brick pier is more important than the bonding to the wall.

 

[23QDM]

Thanks for the replies, Each gate will be 6ft wide and 6ft high.

Underneath the surface tamac there’s several feet of tarmac scalpings, The road through the village resurfaced many years ago and whoever was doing it that was knocking of doors saying they’d tamac the drive for cash and over order on the day they were getting to the property. They had all the equipment like steam rollers in the drive. Not sure how solid the scalpings will be under the surface but the drive has been there 30+ years with no signs of subsidence.

 

[noseall]

Hire a man with a ground auger

 

[noseall]

Each gate will be 6ft wide and 6ft high.

Wow. That's some seriously chunky swinging apparatus, right there.
You will need a steel column or post (with footer) three feet in the ground along with a load of concrete around and underneath the footer.

 

[cdbe]

I have cut sections of tarmac out with a stihl saw and reinstated them afterwards, with a barely visible seam.

 

[Tetrarch]

Admittedly my garden gates were massively over-engineered (4x2 and 25mm loglap) but a 2m x 1.8m wooden gate worked out at ~75kg

I had lateral load questions that the forum was exceptional at giving me guidance on

Garden Gate

I have an approximate 10' space next to my house. I'd like to have a single 6' gate and a 4' fence to fill this space (pic below). I have some 22mm loglap left over that I would like to face both the gate and the fence with Slight wrinkle is that the lean to you can attached to the right side...

www.diynot.com

Regards

Tet

 

[23QDM]

Thanks for the responses, @Tetrarch some good info in your thread.

I think a plan could be try and remove a section of the brickwork without damaging the bricks as much as possible, get some metal posts secured and then replace the brickwork and fit the gates. I will look into sizing the posts according to the loading.