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.
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AfterFast, Reliable Gate Installation Across Westwood
Gate installation in Westwood, MA typically runs $3,800 to $9,600 for a motorized double driveway gate with brick pillar mounts, and a new swing gate operator on an existing gate usually lands between $2,200 and $4,100 including safety photocells and programming. We’re Gatewood Fence & Gate, and we’ve been installing gates the right way since 2001. If you live off Clapboardtree Street or along the University Station corridor, you already know the drill: long private drives, ornamental iron, brick pillars, and winters that punish any post not set to full depth. Call us at (877) 610-2993 and a live person answers, day or night.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Westwood’s Preferred Gate Installation Company
Hal Gatewood founded this company in 2001, and his name is still on the shop and every invoice. That matters in a town like Westwood, where a big share of the work we do fixes what another company left behind. Our customers here tend to be people who’ve already been burned once: a national chain quoted one number on the phone, sent a subcontractor who wasn’t certified on the operator, and then disappeared when the gate started binding in March. We show up when we say we will, and the person who shows up knows how to set a post below the frost line, not just bolt a motor to a pillar and hope.
Westwood’s housing stock skews toward substantial colonials, garrisons, and contemporary estate builds from the 1960s through the 2000s, many set back on wooded lots with long private driveways. That means we’re not installing a basic chain-link gate here. We’re anchoring heavy ornamental iron to brick or stone pillars, running power and safety loops across 80-foot approaches, and integrating keypad entry with existing home systems. Our crews are background-checked and uniformed, and every job carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not done right, one call brings Hal back, no runaround.
What We Know About Westwood That National Companies Don’t
Westwood’s frost line runs about 48 inches deep. Any gate post not set below that will heave upward every spring thaw. Brick pillar foundations shift out of plumb. Swing operators bind on the rack and pinion, trip limit switches, and falsely trigger entrapment protection. A national company sends a tech who replaces the motor and charges you again when the same thing happens next April. That’s why homeowners looking for Gate Repair - Westwood trust us to fix the root cause instead. We start at the hinge post, because that’s where the problem actually lives. On a wooded estate road off the University Station corridor, our crew replaced a 1990s FAAC swing gate operator mounted on a brick pillar that had shifted 1.5 inches out of plumb after the freeze-thaw cycle. We reset the hinge post and poured a new footing to 52 inches, then reinstalled the operator with fresh safety photocells and a new loop detector at the driveway mouth, getting the owner’s keypad and auto-close working reliably without scrapping the still-solid ornamental iron gate. That’s the difference between fixing the cause and replacing the symptom.
Our Gate Installation Services in Westwood
We install every type of gate you’ll find across Westwood, from driveway gates on Gay Street to pedestrian gates alongside an existing fence. Here’s what that looks like in practice. The full range falls under our Gate Installation work, and we are happy to quote any of it free.
Driveway Gate Installation
Driveway gates on Westwood’s estate properties typically run $5,500 to $9,600 for a motorized double gate with brick or stone pillar mounts, operator, safety edges, and keypad entry. The gate itself is usually ornamental iron or aluminum, built to match the home’s architecture. We order from manufacturers who fabricate to your opening width, and we handle the power run from the house to the operator, the loop detector at the driveway mouth, and the programming so your remotes, keypad, and auto-close all talk to each other. A free measure and a written price come before any work starts.
Pedestrian Gate Installation
A pedestrian gate at a Westwood home often ties into an existing fence line near the front walk or around a pool enclosure. Typical job runs $900 to $2,800 depending on width, material, and whether you want a keyed latch or an electronic strike tied to your home system. We set posts to depth regardless of gate size, because here a 48-inch frost line doesn’t care if the gate is four feet wide or fourteen.
Sliding Gate Installation
Sliding gates make sense on Westwood driveways with steep grades or short setbacks where a swing gate would strike a car or slope. A cantilever slide gate with operator runs $5,800 to $11,000 installed, and we pour the concrete base to carry the full travel. Salt spray from the plows is a real factor on these, so we spec stainless hardware and seal exposed steel where we can. The track and roller system has to survive 50-plus inches of annual snowfall, and the cheap rollers national outfits install will bind by February. For Gate Parts & Welding in Westwood, we spec components that last.
Swing Gate Installation
Swing gates are the bread and butter of Westwood’s estate roads. A single swing gate with an underground or pillar-mount operator runs $3,800 to $6,800; a double swing gate runs $6,000 to $9,600. The big variable is the masonry. Many of these pillars have been sitting there since the house went up in the 1970s, and they were never built with an operator in mind. We drill and epoxy anchor into brick, we don’t surface-bolt, and we always tell you if the pillar itself needs repair before we hang anything on it.
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 Westwood
We’re certified to service nine major gate brands, and on Westwood jobs we most often work with Viking, DoorKing, and Elite operators. We stock common control boards, limit switches, and photocell heads locally, which means when a Westwood customer calls with a Viking unit that’s tripping after a storm, we’re not waiting a week on a distributor in Ohio. If we don’t have a part on the truck, we know exactly which supplier in the region has it and how fast it lands. For homeowners weighing a new install, we’ll explain honestly which brands hold up best under Westwood’s salt and freeze-thaw cycle, and which ones we’d steer you away from even though the price looks good on paper.
Common Gate Installation Problems We See in Westwood Homes
- Frost heave throws brick pillars out of plumb. Every spring thaw, posts set at 36 or 40 inches instead of the full 48-plus shift upward, which twists the hinge geometry and binds swing operators. The motor often gets blamed, but the motor is rarely the problem.
- Salt spray eats iron hinges and operator arms. Westwood gets 50-plus inches of snow a year, and the plow trucks deposit salt across the driveway mouth exactly where your gate hardware lives. We see hinge pins rusted solid and arm brackets corroded through by March, especially on gates within 10 feet of the road.
- Pre-UL 325 gates lack modern entrapment protection. Homes built in the 1980s and 1990s around Westwood often still have operators without compliant photocells or edge sensors. The owner calls for a new install, but the gate itself may be fine; what’s needed is a full safety retrofit, which we can often do without replacing the iron.
- Long driveways with no loop detector. Westwood’s estate lots mean some driveways run 80 feet or more. Without a proper vehicle loop at the mouth, the gate can’t tell the difference between a car and a deer walking past, and exits get blocked or the gate cycles open for no reason. We install and tune loop detectors as part of any driveway gate job.
Pricing for Gate Installation in Westwood, MA
Here’s the honest picture for Westwood. A basic single swing gate with a mid-range operator and one keypad starts around $3,800. A double ornamental iron driveway gate with brick pillar mounts, safety edges, loop detector, and a Viking or DoorKing operator runs $6,000 to $9,600. Pedestrian gates run $900 to $2,800. Sliding gates run $5,800 to $11,000 depending on the track work and grade. What moves the price most in Westwood is the masonry condition: if your pillars need rebuilding or the posts need new footings below the frost line, that work is part of the honest quote, not a surprise at the end. Every price is written down and agreed to before we start. Standing offers apply on every job: $40 off any repair over $200, no trip charge inside the county, and a permanent 10% discount for seniors and veterans. Call (877) 610-2993 for a free, written estimate. Free second opinion on any written estimate you’ve already got, too.
We Also Serve Cities Near Westwood
Most of our Westwood work comes from referrals in Norwood, Dedham, Needham, and Canton. If you’re in one of those towns and your gate is binding or your operator won’t hold a limit, you get the same crew, the same 90-Day Done Right Promise, and the same owner answering the phone. The Gate Installation in Westwood team covers the whole Norfolk County ring around this town, and we’re usually on site within a day or two for scheduled installs.
Serving Westwood, MA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Westwood 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 Installation in Westwood
Because the frost line did the hitting. Westwood’s ground freezes down to about 48 inches, and when it thaws, any post or pillar set shallower than that shifts. That shifts the gate’s swing plane, which breaks the photocell beam alignment, which trips the entrapment protection and reverses the gate. It’s the most common spring call we get in Westwood, and the fix is resetting the hinge post to proper depth, not replacing the photocells. Call (877) 610-2993 and we’ll diagnose it on site.
In many cases, yes, a retrofit is possible without scrapping the operator. If the motor, gearbox, and control board are still sound, we can add compliant safety photocells, a current-sensing edge or pressure edge, and re-program the force limits to meet UL 325 requirements. If the control board itself predates the standard and cannot accept those inputs, a board swap or a new operator becomes the honest answer. We’ll tell you which one applies before you spend a dollar. Estimates are free.
It’s almost always the hinge post. A gate sags in the post, not in the middle of the panel, and that’s where we start. In Westwood, a shallow hinge post gets heaved by freeze-thaw, the post leans, and the gate drops at the latch end. If you fix the panel without fixing the post you’ll fix it twice. We reset the post below the frost line, realign the hinges, and only then make any frame corrections the gate itself needs.
For a long driveway with brick pillars, we usually recommend a high-torque swing arm operator mounted with epoxy anchors into the pillar, or an underground operator if you want the hardware hidden entirely. Viking and DoorKing both make units we’ve installed on Westwood estate drives that handle wide, heavy double gates reliably. The more important decision is the post footing: no operator holds alignment if the pillar is shifting with the frost. Get that right and the operator choice is straightforward. Call us and we’ll walk your driveway with you.
Check whether the hinge post has moved, not whether the sensors are dirty. The freeze-thaw cycle shifts pillars out of plumb, the gate binds against the operator’s rack, the motor draws more current, and the controller reads that as an obstruction and reverses. It feels like a blocked gate, but it’s a misaligned one. You can visually check the gap between the gate and the pillar for uneven wear. Then call us at (877) 610-2993 and we’ll confirm it on site, usually the same day if you’re calling from Westwood.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Westwood and Norfolk County since 2001.