Troutsqueezer
Well-known member
There have been a few robberies in areas not far from our place in the past few months so we decided that after 30 years of living here it is finally time to put in that driveway gate. Even though it is a lot of hard work to install it myself, it gives me a great opportunity to get out for a few hours every morning and get the ol' blood flowing. It also gives me the opportunity to drag a few tools out that I haven't used in some time.
You wouldn't think it would be much of a problem just to buy a gate somewhere and drag it home to install yourself but around here (central CA.) that is not the case. Turns out that no one wants to sell or build you a gate unless you have them do the installation. Obviously that is where they make the most money. The only place that we could find to make us a nice gate was a business that had absolutely terrible Yelp reviews. Everyone said the owner was extremely rude and unpredictable. The one thing they agreed on however, was the quality of his work. Having no other options, we gave him a down payment and hoped for the best. We gave him all the time he needed and did not press him to adhere to any timetable. So.....three months later we finally got a finished gate. And I certainly cannot argue with the quality.
I had to think long and hard as to how to load it into my truck and haul it home. I decided standing it up and leaning the two pieces together was the best option.
Next I rented a two-man post hole digger and dug the holes. At my age, I need to ease up on the heavy lifting and overuse of the shoulders or I will pay for it. Even so, my neck still hurts from straining to keep the digger from twisting as it dug down.
Since the gates are very heavy, I installed some outriggers to keep the post from leaning. The post is not yet aligned.
Twenty bags of concrete later, the post are steady. It took quite a long time to ensure they were vertical, tops at the same height, facing each other perfectly and at the precise distance from each other to make room for the weld-on hinges and the gates themselves. There's no going back after the concrete.
That's as far as I've gotten. The next thing is to weld the hinges. I plan to suspend the gates in place with my tractor and hold them against the posts using some clamps while I weld.
Will post more pics as progress continues.
You wouldn't think it would be much of a problem just to buy a gate somewhere and drag it home to install yourself but around here (central CA.) that is not the case. Turns out that no one wants to sell or build you a gate unless you have them do the installation. Obviously that is where they make the most money. The only place that we could find to make us a nice gate was a business that had absolutely terrible Yelp reviews. Everyone said the owner was extremely rude and unpredictable. The one thing they agreed on however, was the quality of his work. Having no other options, we gave him a down payment and hoped for the best. We gave him all the time he needed and did not press him to adhere to any timetable. So.....three months later we finally got a finished gate. And I certainly cannot argue with the quality.
I had to think long and hard as to how to load it into my truck and haul it home. I decided standing it up and leaning the two pieces together was the best option.
Next I rented a two-man post hole digger and dug the holes. At my age, I need to ease up on the heavy lifting and overuse of the shoulders or I will pay for it. Even so, my neck still hurts from straining to keep the digger from twisting as it dug down.
Since the gates are very heavy, I installed some outriggers to keep the post from leaning. The post is not yet aligned.
Twenty bags of concrete later, the post are steady. It took quite a long time to ensure they were vertical, tops at the same height, facing each other perfectly and at the precise distance from each other to make room for the weld-on hinges and the gates themselves. There's no going back after the concrete.
That's as far as I've gotten. The next thing is to weld the hinges. I plan to suspend the gates in place with my tractor and hold them against the posts using some clamps while I weld.
Will post more pics as progress continues.
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+1 that you have beautiful property.
