How often should you service your gate? Discover expert maintenance tips to keep your gates operating smoothly, ensuring safety and longevity for your property.
Why Gate Servicing Matters
Regular servicing keeps your gate operating safely, smoothly, and reliably. Whether it protects a home, funnels deliveries at a busy warehouse, or secures a multi-unit development, a gate is a working machine exposed to weather, vibration, and repeated movement. Lubricants dry out, hinges loosen, motors drift out of alignment, and control boards accumulate dust and insects.
Routine maintenance spots these issues early, preventing inconvenient breakdowns, expensive emergency call-outs, and dangerous malfunctions that could damage vehicles or injure people.
Just like a car, a gate system that is routinely inspected runs better, lasts longer, and preserves the manufacturer’s warranty. In short, servicing is an affordable investment that safeguards security, convenience, and peace of mind for property owners and site managers alike.
How Often Should You Service a Gate?
As a rule of thumb, automated gates that are used by domestic households should be professionally serviced once every twelve months. For commercial sites, multi-resident car parks, or any entrance that averages more than twenty cycles a day, servicing every six months is advisable.
Where traffic is exceptionally heavy—distribution centres, busy security checkpoints, or public car parks—quarterly inspections keep critical components within manufacturer tolerances and comply with workplace safety regulations.
Usage isn’t the only consideration. The first year after installation is important because bolts settle, seals bed in, and electronics may need firmware updates. Most installers schedule a follow-up service six months after commissioning to ensure everything has cured correctly. Thereafter, adopt the schedule that matches real-world duty cycles.
Climate also influences intervals. Coastal environments accelerate corrosion, while exposed rural sites can suffer wind damage and blown debris in the rack and rails.
In these harsher conditions, shorten the gap between visits or arrange seasonal check-ups before winter and again before the busy summer months.
Finally, remember that British standards, insurance policies, and many manufacturer warranties stipulate regular servicing by a trained, competent engineer. Skipping a visit can leave you personally liable if a mechanical failure injures someone.
Keep a dated log and service certificates so that you can demonstrate compliance if an incident or claim arises. In practice, the modest cost of routine maintenance is far cheaper than repairs, downtime, or legal exposure caused by neglect.
Scheduled care ultimately protects reputations and preserves the value of your security investment.
What Affects the Servicing Schedule?
Several variables dictate how frequently a gate needs attention. The most influential is daily usage: every opening and closing cycle adds wear to motors, gearboxes, hinges, and safety sensors.
Environment comes next. Salt-laden coastal air, agricultural dust, road grit, or prolonged humidity can corrode metal parts and clog tracks faster than clean urban sites. Construction quality also matters; lighter domestic kits may need closer supervision than heavy-duty commercial operators.
Age is another factor because seals harden, electronics age, and replacement parts can become scarce. Finally, regulatory or insurance requirements might compel shorter intervals for gates that serve the public or act as a certified fire escape. A competent engineer weighs these elements when setting an appropriate servicing programme over time.
Signs Your Gate Needs Servicing
Even with a diary reminder, your gate can tell you when it needs professional attention. The first—and most critical—warning sign is any change in the safety devices. If the photocells, pressure edges, or force-limiting sensors stop responding instantly, isolate the gate and book a service. Grinding, screeching, or banging sounds are also clear red flags. They often indicate worn bearings, debris in the track, or a motor straining to overcome resistance.
Sluggish movement is another clue. A gate that once opened briskly but now crawls or pauses mid-stroke may have low hydraulic fluid, damaged rollers, or electronic issues such as voltage drop. Likewise, a gate that no longer reaches its fully open or closed positions can leave your property exposed and points to limit-switch problems.
Visual checks are equally important. Look for frayed wiring, oil leaks, chipped paint exposing bare metal, or sagging gate leaves.
Rust spreading around hinge pins or at the bottom of a sliding gate suggests drainage problems that will accelerate structural failure if ignored.
Finally, pay attention to your control interface. Blinking warning LEDs, error codes on the control panel, or a keypad that only works intermittently are early signs that circuitry needs testing and possibly replacement.
Recording these oddities and passing them to the engineer helps diagnose faults faster, saving labour costs. Addressing minor issues quickly almost always prevents larger breakdowns and extends the overall service interval.
Unusual smells, such as burning insulation or scorched oil, similarly demand an immediate call-out to prevent costly failures.
What Happens During a Gate Service?
A comprehensive gate service begins with a visual and functional inspection. The engineer checks alignment, hinge integrity, and structural welds, then tests safety edges, photocells, and force settings against current standards. Mechanical parts are cleaned, greased, and adjusted; rollers, chains, or rams are measured for wear.
Electrical enclosures are opened to tighten terminals, clear insects, and verify earth bonds. Control software and radio receivers are updated if newer firmware improves performance or security. Drainage channels, wheel tracks, and limit-stop areas are cleared of debris.
Finally, the gate is cycled multiple times while voltages, currents, and safety response times are recorded. The engineer issues a written report detailing findings, any minor fixes completed, and recommendations for future work to maintain reliable automation.
Our compliance and safety audit programme safeguards every stage of your electric gate’s life-cycle. We perform full inspections, automation risk assessments and routine compliance testing of sensors, safety edges, emergency stops, speeds, control panels and wiring.
