Electric gate repairs, servicing and emergency call-outs

Usually one of three things: power, the safety devices, or the control board. If nothing on the gate responds, start with the supply and the fuse or breaker for the gate. If the gate has power but ignores everything, the control board has often locked out after detecting a fault. Ring us before resetting it repeatedly, because a board that keeps tripping is telling you something.

The most common cause is a safety device that thinks something is in the way. A dirty, misaligned or waterlogged photocell will hold a gate open indefinitely, and so will a safety edge that has been damaged. It can also be a limit switch that has drifted. Until it is fixed, an open gate is not securing anything, so this is worth treating as urgent.

Almost always the safety devices rather than the motor, for the same reasons as above, because a gate is designed to fail safe by staying open. Have a look for anything sitting in the beam.

The motor is getting power but is not turning the gate, which usually means a failed capacitor, a seized or worn gearbox, or a gate that has become physically obstructed or has dropped on its hinges. Stop using it. Running it in this state does further damage.

No hum, no movement. Check the supply first. Beyond that it is usually the motor, the capacitor or the wiring between the board and the motor, all of which need an engineer.

If one fob has stopped, it is normally the battery or the fob itself. If every fob and the keypad have stopped together, it is the receiver, the aerial or the board. Receivers are one of the most common components we replace.

Stop using it and ring us. A sliding gate off its track can fall, and a swing gate dragging on the ground is putting the whole load through the hinges and the motor.

Yes. We service and repair systems we did not install, on any make, and it is one of the main reasons people ring us. We diagnose across the mechanical, electrical and control parts of a system rather than only the parts we are familiar with.

Yes. We work regularly with CAME, FAAC, BFT, Nice, Beninca, DEA, Roger Technology and Locinox, among others. We are not tied to a single manufacturer, so we are not limited to the makes one brand will let us touch.

The makes we work with.

No. A one-off call-out is fine and you do not have to sign anything first. A contract gets you lower call-out charges, discounts on parts and additional services, a priority enquiry line and an annual service reminder, but it is not a condition of us coming out.

Two years of parts and labour, on systems held under a service contract with us. The service contract is the condition, not the small print: the warranty applies to systems we are looking after on an ongoing basis.

dhf TS 013-1:2021, the trade body code of practice, does not set a single universal interval, but it does state at section 6.5 that force testing is necessary as part of regular planned maintenance, and it requires the testing instrument to be calibrated annually. In practice the right interval depends on how hard the gate works, and we will recommend one at the survey.

Every planned service visit covers the mechanical, electrical and control parts of the system, includes force testing where the gate relies on force limitation, and ends with a documented job report saying what was found, what was done and what the system needs next. The force testing is not an optional extra: dhf TS 013-1:2021 states at section 6.5 that it is necessary as part of regular planned maintenance, using an instrument calibrated annually to EN 12453 or EN 12445. What a particular visit covers beyond that depends on the gate, the make and how hard it works, so we set the scope against your system rather than against a standard list, and it is written into the contract before anybody attends. Ask us and we will tell you exactly what your visit includes.