Your gate, whatever type of gate it is, acts as the front doorway to your garden and your home. In essence, it’s the gate that is the initial engagement your visitors have with you.
If the electric gate isn’t right, it may appear too showy or perhaps even somewhat aggressive. On the other hand, if it’s a well-designed gate, it can be nothing short of beautiful.
First, though, you need to ask yourself why you wish to have an electric gate installed, and you need to be aware of your intentions with respect to use.
Think about what it is you want your electric gates to do, besides look good.
Consider the typical comings and goings, both by foot as well as by car.
Are the gates going to be used primarily for purposes of security? Are they going to keep people or animals inside or out? Are the gates for reasons of privacy?
The answers to these questions will provide you with a basis for the brief. The brief will impact the material to be used for gate construction, whether you require additional access for pedestrians, pets, or things such as gardening equipment and such.
Electric Gates And Design Issues
Design starts with gate positioning. If it’s gates for your driveway, the gates will serve to direct vehicles to a particular space within your home area.
With regard to gate design, models that are off the shelf do tend to work well. However, as a way of genuinely complementing your home, electric gates should be designed from scratch, if your budget will stretch to that.
All major UK gate suppliers cater to bespoke service. In fact, given that, so few gate openings come with a standardised size, almost all electric gates are made to order. That still rings true, even though the majority of these gates come from a standard template.
There is an array of varying styles and shapes of electric gates.
- Courtyard gates are generally a taller (typically 1.8m) form of driveway gate which is normally designed to effect privacy.
- Grander affairs, estate gates were, as the name suggests, originally designed for the entryway to large estates. Now, though, estate gates are more commonly of a sweeping, lower, swinging nature, and are generally made from metal. Estate gates are relatively commonly seen on driveways where the owners want a more rural appearance.
- Field gates, which hail from the traditional farm gate, are a valid consideration for those who want lower gate installations (in terms of height). Field gates are ideal for an opening of two meters or less.
- The picket gate also referred to as a palisade or wicket gate, is made using vertical boards that are closely fixed. There’s a brace at the top and bottom which is connected by a straight or diagonal middle brace.
Really, what it comes down to in terms of gate design choice is to be as site-specific as possible. Every size and type of gate has its place.
Nevertheless, you must also take the style of your home, your general locale, and the streetscape into account when you’re making decisions.
Design-based electric gate choices have a practical application and vice versa.
- While metal gates can look pleasingly grand, when matters of privacy arise, they do tend to be inferior.
- Wooden gates come with a good amount of flexibility in terms of what you can do with them, but they can require fairly regular maintenance because of the potential for warping and twisting.
- Again, with wooden gates, there are a few key design points to think over. Those are the style, position, and quantity of braces and bars.
- Don’t forget to leave a space to put in a pedestrian gate.
Security
Your choice of electric gates will be inclusive of security. But, at the same time, you should try to take care and avoid making security the major function of the gates.
Meaning, there’s no doubt that for you, security is an important factor. But, simultaneously, you should avoid choosing electric gates that make your home look highly fortified.
Large, overly imposing gates give an obvious signpost for security. As such, large, overly imposing gates can also give a message to potential burglars that there is something of interest behind them.
Gate Style
Finally, what is fashionable for electric gates?
For the time being, there’s a definitive increase in the popularity of close-boarded, contemporary-styled, automated gates at modern homes near the higher end of the financial scale.
Many people have a preference for steel gates because they don’t call for much maintenance, and they are robust.
Timber, closed-boarded gates cater to a desire for privacy for complete privacy.
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