Industrial Gates

Industrial gates are the heavy-duty entrances built for sites where vehicles are large, traffic is constant and the boundary has to hold. They go on factories and warehouses, logistics and distribution yards, construction sites, transport depots, ports and utility facilities such as substations and treatment plants. Spans are wide, leaves are heavy, and the gate usually cycles many times a day for years, which changes almost every decision compared with a residential gate. Group One New Zealand designs, manufactures and installs them from a workshop in Islington, Christchurch, and heavy commercial installations are also documented on our Commercial Gate Co site.

Five ways a heavy gate opens

The opening method is the first decision and the one that constrains everything after it.

Sliding gates run across the opening on a ground track. Efficient use of space, straightforward hardware, and the option that suits a yard with a clear, level run-off beside the entrance.

Cantilever gates slide too, but the leaf is carried on rollers set back on the fence line with nothing touching the ground. That is the answer on sites where a ground track would not survive: yards that collect gravel, mud, silt or snow, uneven hardstand, or an entrance crossed constantly by heavy vehicles. It costs more in steel because the counterbalance tail has to be built, and it repays that on any site where the ground is the problem.

Swing gates open like doors, and on wide industrial spans they are usually a pair. They need clear arc space and they load their posts hard, but the mechanism is simple and there is nothing beside the opening to keep clear.

Bi-fold gates fold as they open, so they clear an entrance quickly in a space too tight for a slide or a full swing. Useful where a queue at the gate costs money.

Vertical lift gates raise the leaf upward. They belong where there is no side room at all and no room to swing.

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Specifying the leaf

Six things determine whether a heavy gate stays true:

• Span and leaf weight, which together set every other number on the drawing
• Frame section and bracing, because a wide leaf is fighting its own weight along its whole length
• Infill, from vertical bar and mesh through to sheet, which changes the weight and the wind load together
• Wind loading, since a solid leaf on an exposed Canterbury site is a sail the operator has to move in a nor’wester
• Posts and footings, sized for the ground rather than the gate
• Coating, hot-dip galvanising as the base with powder coat over it where appearance or coastal exposure calls for it

Automation on a heavy leaf

An industrial gate is nearly always powered, and the operator has to suit the cycle count as well as the weight. We can provide larger commercial motors reserved for larger, heavier gates, and our range of safety devices and alternative opening methods allows automation on sloped ground as well as flat level. Our gates are solar powered as well, which saves you energy costs and is often the practical answer at a yard entrance a long way from the switchboard.

Safety hardware on a gate this size is not optional: photo eyes, safety edges, force limits and an accessible emergency stop. Access hardware follows how the site actually runs, whether that is remotes for staff, keypads for contractors, readers for a large workforce or free-exit loops so nothing has to be pressed on the way out. The hardware side of that sits with gate access systems.

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Sites we reach

Industrial entrances are built and fitted across the wider Canterbury service area:

• Industrial Gates Amberley
• Industrial Gates Ashburton
• Industrial Gates Christchurch
• Industrial Gates Darfield
• Industrial Gates Kaiapoi
• Industrial Gates Methven
• Industrial Gates Rangiora
• Industrial Gates Rolleston

Get the entrance measured

Heavy gates rarely fail in the leaf. They fail at the interface with the ground: a track that silts up, a roller running on grit, a post that has moved a fraction in soft fill, a hinge carrying a load nobody weighed. That is why the running gear and the footings are chosen for what is under your entrance rather than for the gate on the drawing, and why the measure-up spends as much time on the surface as on the span.

Phone us on 027 424 0600 or email info@groupone.co.nz, 7am to 3pm Monday to Friday. Group One New Zealand, Unit 1, 37 Foremans Road, Islington, Christchurch 8042. NZBN 9429053752833.

Call 027 424 0600 to Request a Free Quote