Category: Fencing

Here are a few more pictures of my recent gate-hanging lessons. The gates I buy are labled for the gate opening size, if you plan to have the gate fit that opening exactly. But the gate frames are actually about 4″ narrower; this allows room for the hinges on one side, and a little bit of clearance on the other so that the gate can swing freely in both directions. For most of my big gates, I had planned on using interior latches, which require a very specific amount of extra space allowed for  them– I think between 2-2 3/4″, or something like that.

I tried very hard to place the posts exactly right to get the opening within the tolerance allowed. But, I didn’t always succeed, so I had one opening that was a little too narrow. So, the gate only swings in one direction here, and has a latch that can accommodate one-hand operation. This latch also holds the weight of the gate up, to help minimize sagging (upper left photo). And, it accepts a padlock, which I may choose to use since this borders neighboring property.

This gate opening also had the problem of too much slope under the gate. It would have been wiser to have placed this gate further down the fenceline where the ground was level. But doing gates mid-fence instead of along the corners requires H-braces on either side, so costs a lot more in extra posts and work. So, I made do with this corner gate and back-filled some soil at the low point. It can now keep in livestock, but not the dogs (or coyotes)-they scoot underneath. I may need to do some more work with it in the future.

Here is what it looks like now.

 The opposite problem I had was with openings that ended up a little too wide. I just filled in the extra space with treated 2×6″ boards, as needed, so that there aren’t tempting openings for lambs and dogs to try to squeeze through.

Here is one opening that ended up too wide- the gate swings nicely in both directions, but there is a good 4″ of extra clearance I didn’t intend to have!

And, below, is the solution: a “sandwich” of two 2×6’s. I’ve seen people correct even bigger gaps by building a box on the side of the post, so that the full width of a 2×6 can extent out and have another 2×6 capping on top of that, to provide a spot for the latch.

This is another one-hand latch, this one lets the gate go in either direction, and also supports its weight, when closed, to ease sagging. And, this one also accepts a padlock. I’ve installed brass combination locks on the gates by the road, just to discourage any “visitors.” I’m less worried about theft than rowdy teenagers being tempted to do any 4×4’ing in the pasture, or do any “cow tipping.” But, with the combo locks, I can give the combo to anyone who needs to get in, like my friends who want to use the field to train their dogs for tracking. 

These pictures have been sitting around for a while, as I finished hanging gates in the first field months ago. But, since I had a hard time developing a strategy for hanging big gates, I thought I’d share what I came up with.

The first time I tried it, I found the gates to be very awkward and unwieldy to handle. Trying to  hold them up to the posts and just mark where they should go does not work! Especially if you are doing it solo and don’t have a helper, which is often the case for me. I needed a more accurate system. Uneven ground increased the challenge: I prefer my gates to be fairly low to the ground so the dogs can’t get under, but they need to be high enough to swing easily, even over time as they sag.

What I found worked well was to use a “string level” to determine where I wanted to position the bottom of the gate. These are inexpensive tiny levels that hang on a piece of string, as shown in the picture.

They aren’t perfectly accurate, but if you position it roughly in the middle of the stretch of string, it’s good enough guidance to let you visualize where the bottom of the gate will be. Once I decided where the bottoms of each gate post went, I marked that on the posts. Then I measured up to where the bottom bracket should be in relation to the bottom of the gate posts, and drilled a hole for that bracket’s hanging bolt. From that bolt, I’d measure upwards to determine the position of the top bracket’s bolt. Here is a picture of the string level marking the gate’s bottom:

The trick with most of these gate hinges is they are intended for the bolt “finials” (this is not the right word, but I’m not sure what the correct term should be…) point towards each other. This is counter-intuitive to some, and if you don’t plan right, you won’t end up being able to achieve this. The biggest reason for them pointing towards each other is: if, for example, a strong cow got her horns hooked in the gate and pulled upwards, you wouldn’t want her to be able to slide the gate right off the bolts. So, having the top “finial” point downwards prevents the gate from being removable in this fashion. (You could imagine that it makes it less trivial for thieves to break in too, but it’s still simple for them to break in: they can just unscrew the hinge bolts, or snip right through your fence wire!)

To make sure you can have the top finial pointing downward, it’s important to place the top bolt high enough that you can have the hinge positioned lower on the gate that the bolt’s “finial” and then slide it up onto the “finial”. Err on the side of putting the bolt too high than too low. Once the hinge bracket is on the finial,  you tighten the bolts down, and the weight of the gate is actually pulling mostly sideways against this “finial” (thus it doesn’t need to sit “down” on an upward-pointing “finial”- only the bottom hinge needs to do that). I had a couple of cases where I didn’t plan right, or had another object in the way, and ended up with the top “finial” pointing upwards. It turns out, it works OK as long as the gate is a big one– the weight of the gate still “binds” it plenty on the hinge bolt to where even a lot of force won’t slide it up and off the bolts. But, this would not be true for smaller gates.

Here are two gates where I was pretty happy with their final hanging height and smooth ability to swing in both directions. I had one gate opening that ended up being too narrow, so the gate only opens inward. I can live with that, but much prefer them to go both ways. It just makes it convenient to get vehicles and animals in and out when the gate can move in the direction that’s most accommodating to the flow of movement.

In case my use of the word “finial” isn’t clear, here is a photo of the part of the bolt I’m referring to (in the red circle). In this photo, the hinge and bolt are positioned as they are when you purchase the gate, such that they won’t fall off during transport. You have to swing the hinge around 180°, which can be tricky. I find that I need to bring several extra tools down to the field for this purpose: a big screwdriver for leverage, some channel locks, extra pliers and a hammer. It seems it’s worse on these mesh gates, as sometimes the hinge gets hung up on the wire. On some I had to completely remove it and then re-attach it in the other direction. It takes a lot of force to bend them enough to get them off, and then narrow them back up again to re-bolt them in their final position.

I got a few new fencing supplies via mail order today. The first was a one-hander gate latch, a style I’ve admired at several friends’ farms, but could not find locally. It was hard to search for it on the web, as I didn’t really know what to call it. It’s just a simple hook for a chain, but it’s easy to operate with one hand, while being difficult for clever animals to nose open. I imagine it’s only suitable for small, man-sized gates, but those are the ones you most frequently go through with your  hands full, so it’s inconvenient to mess with a chain-around-post lock. I found these at Jeffers Livestock Supply, for $1.99 apiece. Nice!

 I was interested to see they have an example of using their brackets to make little loafing shelters out of T-posts and a piece of plywood for a sloped roof. This might be convenient for rapidly making inexpensive and moveable weather shelters for small animals or livestock. Hmm, food for thought.