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 Parts & Welding Across Boulder
Gate parts and welding in Boulder usually means one of three things: a hinge that finally gave out, a post that rotted at ground level, or an operator that stopped listening to its remote. We fix all three, and we do most of the work in your driveway rather than hauling your gate back to a shop. Hal Gatewood has been running Gatewood Fence & Gate since 2001, and the person who answers the phone at (877) 610-2993 isn’t a recording. If you’re in Boulder and your gate won’t close, call before the next Chinook hits.
Boulder is not an easy place to keep a gate alive. The wind, the freeze-thaw cycles, and the altitude all work against you. A gate that survived twenty years in Louisville might not last ten up against the foothills, and the repairs need to reflect that. We treat wind-rated hardware as the baseline here, not an upgrade you have to ask for.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Boulder’s Preferred Gate Parts & Welding Company
Most of our Boulder customers found us the same way: they got a quote from a company that wanted to replace the whole gate, then called around for a second opinion. Hal is the second opinion. Our Gate Parts & Welding crew welds on site, which keeps your gate in the driveway and keeps the repair honest. If a hinge can be rebuilt, we rebuild it. If a post can be sleeved, we sleeve it. If the gate truly needs replacing, we’ll tell you that too, and we’ll quote it up front with a number that won’t change at the door.
Every job carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If something we touched fails within 90 days, one call brings us back, no argument and no invoice. That’s not a slogan. It’s on the paperwork, signed by Hal. We also answer the phone 24/7 with a live person, which matters when your gate is stuck open at 9 p.m. and you’re up in Mapleton Hill wondering what’s wandering into the yard.
Boulder homeowners deal with gate problems that a tech from Denver might never see in a year. We know the west-side wind zones. We know which Table Mesa ornamental iron gates have fatigue cracks at the hinge welds. We know the preservation rules in the historic districts because we work within them every season.
Our Gate Parts & Welding Services in Boulder
Hinge Replacement
Boulder’s old wooden gates almost never fail in the panel first. They fail at the hinge, where decades of wind load and freeze-thaw cycles have wallowed out the screw holes or cracked the wood around the strap. We replace hinges with heavier-gauge steel than what the gate came with, and we repair the hinge post while we’re at it because a new hinge on a rotted post is a two-month fix, not a twenty-year fix. In west Boulder, we size hinges for wind gusts that would bend a box-store strap like foil.
Post Replacement
A gate sags in the hinge post, not in the middle, and that’s where we start. Around Boulder, the freeze-thaw cycle heaves concrete post footings year after year, and at 5,430 feet the UV takes its toll on any wood left exposed. We replace posts with steel where the Boulder historic overlay allows it, and with properly treated wood where the district requires a match to the original. Most post replacements in Boulder need a deeper footing than the original because the Chinook winds pushing on a 6-foot gate create enormous leverage at ground level.
Rail Repair
On wooden picket gates, the rails rot before the pickets. You’ll see it as a diagonal sag or a gate that scrapes the ground on the latch side. We cut out the bad section and weld or bolt in a steel-reinforced rail, then re-hang the gate so it swings level. On ranch-style properties in Table Mesa, we regularly repair the top rails of ornamental iron gates where wind fatigue has cracked the welds at the rail-to-stile joints.
Custom Welding
Not every gate problem has a bolt-on answer. Boulder’s mid-century iron gates, especially the decorative ones in the 80305 neighborhoods, develop stress fractures through the scrollwork and at the hinge pin welds. You can’t buy that part at a hardware store. We weld on site, matching the existing metal profile and finish so the repair doesn’t announce itself from the sidewalk. We also fabricate custom steel post sleeves, gate stops, and latch plates for older gates that no manufacturer supports anymore.
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 Boulder
We’re certified to service nine major gate operator brands, and the ones we see most in Boulder are FAAC, BFT, and Linear. A lot of west-side homes were upgraded to automated driveway gates in the 1990s and early 2000s, and those operators are reaching the end of their control-board lifespan right about now. We stock common replacement boards and safety edges locally, which means less waiting on a truck from Texas. If you’ve got a Viking operator that’s misbehaving, we can usually have it running same-day in Boulder without ordering anything out of a catalog.
Common Gate Parts & Welding Problems We See in Boulder Homes
- Wind-fatigued hinge welds on ornamental iron. The Chinook winds that funnel through the canyons above Boulder push gates past their design limits repeatedly. Welds crack at the hinge pins, and the gate starts drooping at the latch corner. This is a weld repair, not a hardware-store fix.
- Rotted wooden posts at ground level. Freeze-thaw heaving plus concentrated moisture at the soil line splits posts open every spring. You’ll see a gap open up between post and pickets, or the whole gate will lean toward the street. We repair the post in place or sleeve it with steel, depending on what the historic district allows.
- Obsolete control boards that brown out during wind events. When a Chinook drops 40 degrees in two hours, older boards on legacy FAAC and BFT operators can’t handle the thermal stress. The gate loses its limits, or the remote stops registering. We retrofit current-spec boards that include UL 325 entrapment protection.
- Binding gates on sloped Boulder lots. Many foothills driveways in 80302 and 80304 slope noticeably, and a gate that was fine for years can start binding as the post shifts downhill a few degrees. We re-hang the gate with adjustable hinges and reset the post if the movement is enough to matter.
Pricing for Gate Parts & Welding in Boulder, CO
Hinge replacement on a standard wood or iron gate in Boulder typically runs $175 to $340, depending on the size of the gate and the condition of the post behind the hinge. Post replacement, including setting a steel post in a new footing, runs $450 to $850. Custom welding repairs for cracked iron gates run $150 to $400 for a typical hinge or scroll repair, and more if the damage is extensive. Retrofitting an obsolete control board to current UL 325 standards runs $500 to $900 installed. You get the exact price in writing before any work starts. We honor the $40-off-any-repair-over-$200 offer, we don’t charge a trip fee inside Boulder County, and seniors and veterans get a permanent 10% discount. Call (877) 610-2993 and we’ll come out and quote it for free.
We Also Serve Cities Near Boulder
We’re out in Gunbarrel and Niwot on a regular basis, and we cover Louisville, Superior, and Lafayette as part of our Boulder service area. If you’re just outside the county line, call anyway. We’ll tell you straight whether it’s a trip we can make cheaply or whether we can walk you through a temporary fix until we’re in your area next.
Serving Boulder, CO - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Boulder 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 Parts & Welding in Boulder
Yes, in most cases we can replace the old board with a currently listed control board that includes UL 325-compliant entrapment protection, then add photo eyes and a safety edge if the existing operator lacks them. The retrofits we do in Boulder homes in 80302 and 80304 usually run $500 to $900 installed. If your operator is so old that the motor itself is shot, we’ll tell you that honestly, but a board swap is often all it needs. Call (877) 610-2993 and we’ll take a look before you spend money on a whole new operator.
Yes, and it’s the repair we recommend most in the older Boulder districts. We cut the post at the rot line, drop a steel sleeve over the remaining sound wood or set a new steel stub in the footing, and weld or bolt the existing post section back onto it. It preserves the original look, which matters in Mapleton Hill and Whittier where the preservation overlay often restricts material changes. A sleeve repair typically runs $300 to $550, versus $450 to $850 for a full post replacement.
Custom welding is almost always the better fix for cracked iron on a Table Mesa gate. Those mid-century panels were built from wrought or mild steel with ornamental details that can’t be sourced off the shelf, so replacing the panel means either an expensive custom fabrication or a visibly different prefab piece that looks wrong on the house. We weld the crack at the stress point, grind the repair smooth, and treat the metal so it doesn’t rust at the repair site. A typical hinge or scroll repair runs $150 to $400.
Two things happen during a Chinook. The wind loads push the gate against its stops hard enough that the operator’s torque limiter thinks it hit an obstruction, and the rapid temperature swing stresses the control board and motor windings beyond what an older board was rated for. If your operator stalls only when the wind comes down out of the canyons, we’d want to check the limit settings, the condition of the board, and whether your gate’s wind surface area is too large for the operator’s rated capacity. We can usually sort it in one visit without replacing the whole unit.
It depends on the property. University Hill is not fully inside Boulder’s historic preservation overlay, but individual properties can be landmarked, and the city’s zoning rules impose height and setback limits on fences and gates in certain zones. We check zoning before we quote any structural gate work in Boulder, so the permit question gets answered before your money is spent. In the city’s designated historic districts like Mapleton Hill and Whittier, the preservation office often requires repair over replacement, which is exactly the kind of work we do every week.
If your gate is sagging, cracked, or stalled and you live anywhere in Boulder, call (877) 610-2993. You’ll get a live person, a straight answer, and a written price before any work starts. The shop is down the road, and the name is on the truck.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Boulder CO since 2001.