How to choose an entrance gate for your house
When building a house, everyone thinks about the safety of their family and property. Whether it is a high-quality entrance door, a camera system or double locking. But before you get to the house, you have to go through the entrance gate to your property. But what should it look like?
Clients often ask us which gate is the best, whether in terms of safety, quality, durability, maintenance or the price itself. In many cases, clients know what their choice is, but it is not always the best choice. Therefore, for those who do not know or hesitate about choosing an entrance gate, we have put together basic information that should be taken into account when choosing.
For those who make decisions based on price
In the first direction, we will compare the gates in terms of price. For an easier comparison, we selected entry gates in full equipment, i.e. gates with full automation and cover elements. In terms of price, the best choice is to bet on a swing gate. Compared to sliding gates, swing gates do not contain so many elements. At the same time, with a 4-meter opening, the gate will be made up to a size of 4 meters.
In comparison with sliding gates, it is necessary to think about the so-called extension from a technical point of view, as well as from the point of view of functionality. For sliding gates, therefore, a little more material is needed, which requires all the essentials for its modification, such as galvanizing, painting or other work. It should be noted that for swing gates with a drive, it is necessary to procure two modules for the drive, separately for both wings. The drives themselves are therefore more expensive, so the prices between swing and sliding gates do not differ significantly. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the price, we recommend the swing entrance gate to customers. However, there is a BUT coming in this direction that may affect your choice.
Enough space for the entrance gate
Space is an important aspect of choosing entrance gates. It is necessary to pay attention to the shape of the land or the elements that are located in the space of the future entrance gate. For example, if you plan to choose a winged entrance gate, you must consider the sufficient space it needs. With a 4-meter gate, one wing has 2 meters, which moves towards the property (in exceptional cases, outwards). Therefore, it is not possible to park a car or store any object, such as flower pots or trash cans, in this area.
In the second case, it is possible to choose a sliding entrance gate, which, despite the higher price, has the advantage that it does not take up space on your property, so you can use it without restrictions. However, for a sliding entrance gate, a sufficiently wide plot of land is required so that the gate can be opened without any problems and thus that greenery or other objects do not obstruct the length of the plot. So, if you are looking at choosing a gate from the point of view of comfort and saving space, it is advisable to choose a sliding gate.
However, it goes without saying that there are also clients who do not have enough space or land width for a sliding gate, and at the same time do not have enough space for a swing entrance gate. Many of you are thinking – This is an unsolvable situation, isn’t it? At VISIO, however, we think about all the problems, and that’s why we started to manufacture and install so-called folding gates, which reduce the area of the gate by half.
For example, if a swing gate has a width of 4 meters, and one wing is 2 meters, then with the folding mechanism we can reduce the given wing to half, and thus to 1 meter</strong >. In this way, we allow our clients to use the potential of their land, because the entrance gate takes up much less space. The free space can thus be used for parking or decorative decorations. You can find more about folding gates in the article on our website.
Types of sliding gates from the point of view of installation
If you are thinking about a sliding gate, you should know that there are two main types, when choosing, you must take into account the space required for its movement. The first type is a cantilever gate that moves in the air. It must have at least the length of the opening + ¼ of the opening. This means that for a 4-meter cantilever gate you need an opening space of 5.6 meters.
The second type is a rail gate that moves along an existing rail on the ground. With this type of sliding gate, you need slightly less space than with a cantilever gate, only 0.5 m to the length of the opening. This means that for a rail gate with a dimension of 4 meters, a displacement space of 4.5 meters is required.
From our point of view, a cantilever gate is the clear choice. This is mainly because there is no need for additional concreting and rail installation along the entire length of the gate travel. You also don’t have to worry about autumn or winter weather, when snow, leaves or pebbles can fall into the rail, which would make it difficult to open the gate. You will also not feel any unevenness when passing by car. The movement of the cantilever gate thanks to polyamide carriages is much faster, more stable and quieter.
With drive or without?
Now that you know which type of entrance gate suits you, we can move on to the important part of the structures themselves. Another important feature is the comfort of the gate as such. In this case, it is important to know whether we are buying a gate with or without automation. In the case of automation, it is very important to choose the right type of drive (more about the drives themselves found here).
In short, we will mention a frequent mistake of clients or unqualified sellers, and that is the fact that for gates, drives are chosen at the expense of a lower price, which gateway type are not enough. For example, we have a gate that is for an opening of 4 meters. Often, the drive for this gate is chosen as the drive for a gate up to 4 m. This is a mistake from which we at VISIO learned a long time ago.
Let’s take into account the fact that if the weather conditions are bad outside, the gate has to fight against the wind to move. Or, for example, if the client chooses a 4-meter gate with slats that are light, and then we have a client whose gate is 2 times heavier, it is not possible to automate them within a single, universal type of drive.
At VISIO, we like professionalism and quality work, so we always come to inspect the place before installation. We will check the conditions in which the gate will be located and, based on that, we will set the correct drive.
In the second case, the VISIO offer has entry gates without automation, where clients are recommended to choose locking options. This means that we will set up a lock for your gate with fittings that you choose and you can lock the gate.
Most often, however, we meet clients whose entrance gates are oversized, so the drive is a convenient and in some cases a necessary addition. Take for example that it is raining outside and you have to get out of the car and manually open that gate, move it and then get into the car already wet and repeat the same process after parking. In today’s era of automation, drives are more accessible, better quality and more affordable.
Security
The last part for choosing a suitable entrance gate is security. An improperly anchored gate can present a number of dangers. It is therefore necessary to pay attention to how the gates of the supplier from whom you buy the gate are anchored.
Are the hinges on the swing gates stable, strong and of good quality? Will the bonding materials last at least 1 winter? Does the supplier use high-quality chemistry when attaching polyamide trolleys? Will it hold my gate? These are the basic questions that must be taken care of so that the gate does not come loose.
At VISIO, we don’t worry about these questions. Safety is our top priority, so we pay attention to much more detailed factors, such as covering systems. They not only fulfill an aesthetic function, but also play a major role in safety. We cover every part that could make life or family uncomfortable inside the property or someone who has dishonest intentions for robbery from outside.
In this article, we brought you the basic differences between gate types, their advantages and disadvantages. We passed the gates from the point of view of price, comfort and safety. In VISIO, you don’t have to deal with these things, because we will help you with the right choice right on the spot, where we will discuss all the pros and cons just for your case. Contact us and we will create a directly tailored offer for you.
