The problem
The gate has stopped and you do not know who to call
The gate is stuck half open, the company that fitted it has gone, and the service history is in a folder nobody can find. What to do first and what a proper record looks like.
The gate stops. Stuck open, the drive is unsecured. Stuck closed, the car is on the wrong side of it. Either way it is a problem right now, and the person facing it has usually never had to think about the gate before.
They look for the paperwork. There is a folder from when the gate was fitted, with a manual for the motor and a business card for the installer. The number rings out. The company changed hands, or stopped trading, or the engineer moved on. The last service, if there was one, was done by a different firm whose invoice is somewhere else.
So the owner searches for electric gate repair and gets a page of names with no way to tell who is any good.
Make it safe first
Before anyone thinks about who to call, the gate needs to be safe. A powered gate is a machine, and HSE treats it as one. A gate that moves unexpectedly, or that has lost the safety edges and photocells that stop it closing on a person, can cause serious harm. Most motors have a manual release so the gate can be moved by hand and secured. Use it, isolate the power if the leaves are behaving oddly, and keep children away from it until an engineer has seen it.
Why the record matters more than the repair
The repair itself is usually straightforward for someone who knows the equipment. What makes it slow and expensive is that nobody can tell the engineer what they are looking at. Which motor, which control board, when it was last serviced, whether anything was modified since. Without that, the visit starts with an inspection to find out what the last person did.
Gate work happens years apart and is often done by different people. Installation, a service, a repair, a new keypad. Each leaves a piece of paper with a different company. The owner is the only constant, and the owner has no system for keeping it.
The record also matters for the duty. On commercial premises, HSE says the owner or occupier has to maintain the gate. On a private drive there is no legal duty, but HSE notes that householders may still be liable for harm the gate causes. Either way, a folder of mismatched invoices is a weak answer. A service history that says what was checked and what the forces measured is a strong one.
The app being built around this
GateHQ
In developmentA directory for finding electric gate engineers, with quote requests and service reminders.
Read before you buy
The longer read.
Automated gate maintenance records: what to keep and why
A powered gate is a machine, and HSE treats it as one. This guide sets out who holds which duty, what documents should exist from the day the gate is commissioned, and how to keep a service record that proves the gate was looked after.
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