Free on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
Fast, Reliable Gate Repair Across Selma
When a gate stops opening in Selma, it usually means one of three things: a hinge post has shifted in clay soil, a control board gave out on an older operator, or harvest equipment tagged a post out on the vineyard roads. All three are fixable, and most Selma calls get a repair the same day we show up. We’re the local gate crew that handles our Gate Parts & Welding in Selma on site, hangs our name on every invoice, and actually answers the phone. Call (877) 610-2993 and talk to a person who knows gates, not a script.
Hal Gatewood started this company in 2001, and the shop is still owner-operated. You get the same experienced eye on an automatic driveway gate off Floral Avenue that you get on a pipe-and-panel farm gate east of town near the vineyard parcels. No subcontractors. No faceless national chain. Just the person who will stand behind the job and come back if something isn’t right. That’s the whole deal.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Selma’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
Selma homeowners call us because the name on the truck matches the name on the shop. Hal Gatewood is the owner, he lives here in the Central Valley, and his published address and license number are there for anyone who wants to look them up. That matters to people in Selma who have been burned by an outfit that quoted one number on the phone and stuffed a different one on the clipboard at the door.
Response time to Selma is honest: we schedule jobs in the order they come in, same day for most repairs inside the county, and a live person answers the call 24 hours a day for any Gate Access Control in Selma emergency. No voicemail tree. No dispatch queue in another state. If a gate is stuck open at 10 p.m. and you’ve got livestock or a teenager coming home, we answer.
The 90-Day Done Right Promise is in writing on every Selma job. If something we did isn’t holding up, one call brings Hal back. He’d rather fix it than argue about it. Around Selma, that matters more than any slogan.
We also know the specific ways gates fail out here: the August sun warping steel, the tule fog rusting iron hardware, and the clay soil under Highway 99 slowly tilting post footings until a swing gate binds and an opener starts straining. Most gate companies won’t tell you the post is the problem because replacing a post is hard work. We’ll tell you, because fixing the panel without the post means you’ll fix it twice.
Our Gate Repair Services in Selma
Every Selma gate we work on gets the same first step: find out why it failed. Not just what’s broken, but what made it break. That’s the difference between a repair that lasts and one that comes back in six months. Here are the services Selma calls us for most.
Hinge & Post Repair
The most common call in Selma, especially on the farm parcels east of town. Clay soil shrinks and swells with irrigation water, which slowly pushes post footings out of plumb. A gate sags in the hinge post, not in the middle, and that’s where we start. We dig out the old footing, set a deeper one with proper concrete, and weld the hinges back square instead of shimming and hoping. A sagging gate in Selma almost always traces back to a post that moved, and until that post is reset, any other repair is temporary.

Gate Realignment
Steel expands in San Joaquin Valley heat. A gate that clears fine in January can scrape the ground and bind against the latch in July. Realignment in Selma means more than loosening bolts and bumping a panel; it means accounting for the full range of movement the frame will see from a 30-degree winter morning to a 105-degree August afternoon. We set the swing, shim the hinges, and make sure the gate actually closes square both ways.

Automatic Gate Repair
Selma has a lot of older operators still running, especially on ranch properties where a gate motor or opener was installed 15 or 20 years ago and nobody has touched it since. The problems we see most: worn FAAC arms, corroded Limit switch assemblies on Linear operators, and control boards on pre-UL 325 units that no longer meet modern entrapment protection standards. Some of those boards are still repairable. Some aren’t worth the cost, and when replacement is the cheaper answer over the next five years, we’ll tell you straight. We service nine major brands including Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, and DoorKing.

Electric Gate Repair
Wiring in the valley takes a beating. Alkaline irrigation water leaves mineral deposits that climb into conduit, corrode connections, and eventually short out solenoids and safety sensors. On a Selma vineyard gate, the electrical problem is rarely the first thing you see; it’s the result of years of moisture and dust working on connections that were crimped and left out in the elements. We trace the circuit, replace what’s bad, and rework the connections so they hold up under valley conditions.

What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Selma
We stock common wear parts for Gate Repair customers in Selma, which means we aren’t waiting on a distributor in Fresno for three days. We’re certified to service Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, DoorKing, LiftMaster, FAAC, BFT, and Mighty Mule. Whether you have a Ghost Controls opener on a residential swing gate off Floral Avenue or a Viking loop detector on a vineyard access gate, we carry the part or can have it in hand before most companies even return your call. Our Gate Repair team services what you already have before recommending something new.
Common Gate Repair Problems We See in Selma Homes
After 29 years of gate work in the Central Valley, the failures around Selma fall into predictable patterns. Here are the four most common:
- Shifted hinge posts in clay soil. Irrigation on the surrounding farmland and landscape watering near the house both make the soil expand and contract. Posts lean, swing gates bind, and opener motors strain until the gears strip. We see this on residential and farm gates alike.
- Warped frames from summer heat. A tubular steel gate west of town can reach well over 150 degrees on a July afternoon. The metal expands unevenly, the frame twists, and the gate stops latching. Straightening is often possible. Sometimes full replacement of the frame makes more financial sense.
- Rusted iron hardware from tule fog. Selma gets socked in with fog for weeks in winter, and that moisture sits on hinges, bolts, and chain links for hours every morning. Cheap hardware rots from the inside out. We replace it with galvanized or stainless, and it lasts.
- Old operators without modern safety sensors. A lot of Selma’s older ranch and farm gates were installed before UL 325 changed the industry. Operators from that era can pinch, crush, or entrap. We replace the control boards where possible, retrofit safety photocells, and bring those gates up to a standard that doesn’t put people or animals at risk.
Why Selma’s Raisin Harvest Is Hard on Farm Gates
Here’s the insight that makes Selma different from every other gate market in California. During the August and September raisin harvest, wide gondola trucks and bin trailers move through the vineyard parcels on a tight schedule. The drivers are experienced, but the roads are narrow, the turns are sharp, and the loads are wide. Every year we get a surge of calls from property owners whose gate posts were clipped by a gondola truck making the turn off a farm road. The post gets knocked out of plumb, the gate sags immediately, and the whole assembly needs to be reset, not just re-hung. It’s predictable to the point where we schedule extra shop time in late August just for harvest-season post work.
One job that sticks with us: out on a vineyard road near the east-side parcels, we reset a sagging pipe-and-panel swing gate that had been hit by a gondola truck during harvest. The hinge post in clay soil had shifted a full four inches. We dug a new post footing with deeper concrete, replaced the worn FAAC operator arm, and reinstalled the safety photocells so the gate would close without entrapment. That’s the kind of repair you can’t fix with a camcorder and a can of spray grease.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Selma, CA
A hinge and post reset on a residential swing gate in Selma typically runs $275 to $550, depending on how much digging and concrete work the soil requires. Gate realignment and latch adjustment usually lands between $150 and $350. Automatic gate repairs on Selma properties span a wider range: a bad safety sensor or limit switch is often $180 to $300, while a failed control board or operator arm can run $400 to $900 for the part and the labor. Full operator replacement, including safety retofit on an older ranch gate, is generally $1,200 to $2,800. The price is quoted and agreed before any work starts. Call (877) 610-2993 for a free estimate, and bring us any written bid from another company for a free second opinion. No trip charge inside the county, regardless of whether you hire us.
Retrofit or Replace? What Selma Property Owners Need to Know
We don’t push replacement when a retrofit makes sense. But some of the gates around Selma were hung before modern safety standards existed, and the honest answer on those is that rebuilding the hinge system and retrofitting a new operator is cheaper than continuing to repair an obsolete control board that hasn’t been manufactured in a decade. Here’s our straight guidance:
- Post and hinge condition: If the post is sound and the hinges haven’t elongated, a realignment and new hardware will get years of service. If the post is rotted or cracked, resetting it now is far cheaper than waiting for the whole assembly to collapse.
- Operator age and safety compliance: Any automatic gate operating today without photo-eye entrapment protection is a hazard. If the board predates UL 325 compliance, we replace the board and add the sensors. If the motor itself is dying, a full operator replacement is usually the better financial call than rebuilding a motor on its last legs.
- Frame condition after years of valley heat: A warped steel panel can be straightened and re-hung, but if the frame is twisting at the welds, a new panel costs less than chasing that problem for twenty more years.
We Also Serve Cities Near Selma
Our service area covers Selma and the surrounding communities in Fresno County. We regularly work in Gate Repair in Selma plus Fowler, Parlier, Kingsburg, and Reedley. If you’re anywhere near Highway 99 between Fresno and Kingsburg, the crew can reach you quickly.
Serving Selma, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Selma area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Gate Repair in Selma
Because gondola trucks and bin trailers routinely clip gate posts during the August-September harvest. The impact knocks the post out of plumb, and the gate sags within days. A full post reset is usually required, not just a hinge adjustment. If it’s happening on your property every year, we can set the post deeper and add a steel guard or a wider gate opening, whichever fits. Call (877) 610-2993 to schedule it before the harvest rush.
Yes. The operator can be retrofitted with UL 325-compliant photo-eye sensors and, where needed, a replacement control board. We do this on Selma vineyard and ranch properties regularly, without replacing the entire gate assembly. It brings the gate up to current entrapment protection standards and keeps the existing frame and post where they’re still sound.
Alkaline water leaves mineral scale that builds up on electrical connections, corrodes terminals, and eventually damages circuit boards and motors. It also accelerates rust on exposed steel hardware where irrigation overspray reaches the gate. We recommend sealing connections, relocating controls up out of the splash zone, and using galvanized or stainless hardware on any gate near irrigated ground. Get an exact evaluation over the phone at (877) 610-2993.
Straightening is worth it when the frame is straight welded and the warping is mild. If the welds are twisting or the frame has been pulled out of square more than an inch or two, you’re likely to see the warp return after the next hot summer. We will tell you which situation you have and quote both options honestly. Upfront pricing means you decide before any work starts.
Worn operator boards and failed limit switches on older Linear and FAAC units, especially on gates that see frequent use during harvest. The constant cycling during the raisin season overheats motors and wears out components that suburban gates never stress. We stock common replacement parts and can usually repair these units the same week. Call (877) 610-2993 and describe what the gate is doing; we’ll tell you what it’s likely to need.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Selma and the surrounding Central Valley since 2001.





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