Garden gate fixing points

[sotal]

I want to put a gate up down the side of my house and was after some advice on the best way to hang it with limited room for posts etc.

The gap has a brick wall on one side (the house) and on the other side there is a fence, the fence is constructed of wooden panels between concrete posts.

The gap is 122cm wide.

The problem comes from the fact that I have a trailer that occasionally I need to move down the side. The width of the trailer is 115cm. So I only have 7cm left to play with. I don't mind it being tight and a bit of a hassle to get past as it won't be a regular occurance but it needs to be possible.

The gate will be used on quite a regular basis as a gate to walk through.

The gate will be approx 6' high and wooden. I have some wood to reuse - it's quite thick (atleast 10mm) so the gate will be quite heavy - not a cheapy overlap panel one.

I had thought of using those peg and eye type hinges so that the gate can be lifted off. The lower peg could be mounted high enough so that it is above the height of the mud gaurd on the trailer. I'm sure these would be OK mounted directly to the wall but wasn't sure if you could mount them to the concrete fence post.

I was also think the gap was quite wide to put a single gate all the way across, so was going to put a small one on the post side and a larger one from the wall.

So any advice would be appreciated, and advice on mounting to a concrete fence post would be good too.

Thanks

 

[mikej2005]

4ft is pretty wide for a gate (3ft is common) so your hinges would have to be suitably sized and the gate properly constructed to take it's own weight.

A 3ft/1ft split gate might be a sensible compromise, but you would probably want to mount the shorter side to the concrete fence post. Is this post sturdy/still enough for this purpose ? You wouldn't want any movement in that post, ideally.

Screwing into concrete posts is also quite tricky, as they are very easy to split if you're not careful. You have to be very careful with your chosen size of screw and raw-plug and be careful not to over-tighten. It's common to screw a wooden baton to a concrete post and then attach any fixings to the baton. I used a 2x4" piece for this purpose although, in my case, this is not the hinged side of the gate.

Screwing a wooden baton to a brick wall and attaching hinges to the baton is also the easiest way of mounting the gate to a wall - it allows you to get everything level and exactly in the right place. Attaching hinges to the brick itself, whilst not impossible if it comes to it, could be tricky.

Don't forget that even if you end up with a 115cm gap, the gate itself may also obstruct the opening. You might want to chose hinges that allow you to fold them right back, or it might even affect which way you want the gate to open.

 

[sotal]

Thanks for the tip, job finished and all looks good.


I made a 3 foot gate and a 1 foot gate.

I got some large hinges which have the pegs to drop on to. I screwed the pegs directly to the wall so the 3 foot gate can be lifted off.

On the fence side I screwed a baton onto the fence post then screwed a regular type hinge to fasten this on. I then used one of the ground bolt things to keep this one in place. Finally I used 2 bolts to fasten the two gates together.

All looks good and nice and secure - only bad thing is the gap has ended up as 114cm

It's not very often that the trailer needs to go down that side so I will just unscrew the 8 screws that hold the 1 foot gate on if I need to get the trailer past.

All the wood was recycled, just had to buy the hinges and the bolt to droop into the ground. So it cost about £12 all in