Custom Gates, Operators & Access Control
Asheville and Western North Carolina. We build the gate, hang it, wire the operator, program the entry system — and come back when it stops working.
A gate is the part of the fence that moves, and moving parts are where fences fail. A gate has to carry its own weight for years, swing clear of a drive that isn't level, latch in July and in January, and — if it's automated — do all of that on a motor, a power supply and a control board that live outdoors in Western North Carolina weather.
That's the reason we keep this work in-house. We build our own gates — every gate we hang is fabricated by us, sized and braced for the opening it's going into. We set the posts for gate weight rather than fence weight, run the wire, mount and program the operator, and set up the keypad or intercom. When something needs attention two winters later, the same company that built it comes back. One phone number, one crew.
All of it runs through our own people: the gate, the posts, the operator, the wiring, the safety devices and the entry system — including getting a networked entry system talking to the outside world. That last part is a side of gate work we've put real time into.
Our gate work
Gates we've built
Real Fence Scapes jobs across iron, wood, vinyl and farm gates.
Iron & ornamental driveway gates
Welded iron hung on our posts or between masonry columns. See ornamental fence to match →
Wood & vinyl driveway gates
Built to match the fence they hang in, with a steel frame inside where the span calls for it.
Farm & property gates
Tube and farm gates sized so equipment actually clears. See farm fence →
Commercial, slide & cantilever gates
Chain-link and steel gates for yards, lots and commercial sites. See chain-link →
Start with the opening
Gate types
The drive decides the gate more than taste does — width, slope, and how much room there is to swing.
Single swing
- One leaf across the opening
- Simple and cheaper, with fewer parts to go wrong
- Needs clear room to swing and enough post to carry the whole width
- Best on narrower drives
Double swing
- Two leaves meeting in the middle — the common driveway answer
- Half the weight per post and half the swing arc of a single
- Works with one or two operators
- What most iron and wood drive gates end up being
Slide & roller
- Rolls sideways instead of swinging
- The answer when there's no room to swing or the drive climbs uphill
- Needs clear space alongside the opening for the gate to park
- Track versus cantilever depends on grade and how clean the ground stays
Cantilever
- Slides on rollers overhead with nothing on the ground
- Nothing to jam with gravel, mud, snow or ice
- Standard on commercial and industrial sites; we've built them well past 20 ft
- Needs a long counterbalance section behind the opening
Walk gates
- Built to match the fence, not ordered as an afterthought
- Self-closing and self-latching where a pool barrier requires it
- Latches a dog can't nose open
- Hinges sized so the gate doesn't drop in two years
Farm & tube gates
- Openings sized for a tractor, a hay trailer or a truck and trailer
- Heavier gate posts set deeper than the line posts
- Chains, latches and hardware that work with gloves on
- Can take an operator so you don't get out of the truck
Automation
Gate operators
An operator is a motor, a control board, a power supply and a set of safety devices. Any of the four can be the reason a gate stops working, which is why the company that installs it should be the company that services it.
What we install
- Swing gate operators — arm and articulated styles
- Slide and cantilever gate operators
- Single and dual-gate control boards
- Residential driveway through commercial-duty units
- Sized to the gate's weight and width, and to how many times a day it cycles
Power at the gate
- Wired to line power where service reaches the road
- Solar-powered operators where it doesn't — common on farm and back entrances
- Battery backup so the gate still opens in an outage
- Conduit run and buried properly, not laid in a trench and forgotten
Safety devices
- Photo eyes so the gate stops for a car, a child or a dog
- Safety edges and reversing sensors
- Exit and safety loops cut into the drive
- Manual release so you're not trapped behind a dead gate
- These are not optional extras — an automatic gate without them is a hazard
An honest word about gate sizing
Most operator failures we get called out on aren't bad operators. They're an operator that was too small for the gate, or a gate that was too heavy for its posts, so the motor fought the gate every single cycle until something gave. We'd rather quote the right size once than come back to it.
Getting people through it
Access control & entry systems
Most of this work is single-family driveways — one gate, one family, a keypad and a couple of remotes. We do commercial sites and HOAs as well, and we'll fit whatever accessories the job needs.
How people get in
- Keypads with codes — the everyday default
- Remotes and visor transmitters
- Video intercoms with an app on your phone
- Telephone entry and directory systems
- Card and fob readers on commercial sites
- One-time or temporary codes for deliveries and contractors
HOAs & multi-tenant sites
- Directory systems with resident lists and unit codes
- Property managers able to add and remove residents
- Separate resident and visitor entry
- Systems chosen to match what a community already standardized on
Brands & service
- We service all major brands of operator and entry system
- A modern entry system is a network device as much as a gate part, and we handle that side of it too
- Cellular-connected systems where there's no internet at the gate
- You don't have to have bought it from us for us to work on it
- Call and tell us what you have — 828.545.5711
The operator we reach for first: All-O-Matic
Most of what we install is All-O-Matic — an American manufacturer building gate operators in Van Nuys, California since 1984 (All-O-Matic). We settled on them, and mostly stay with them, for practical reasons:
- They build a full line of both AC and DC operators, so one brand covers a light residential swing gate and a heavy commercial slider
- DC models come with integrated battery backup — the gate still opens when the power is out, which in these mountains matters
- Mechanical foot-pedal release, so a stuck gate can be freed without tools
- Heavy-duty range that handles long slide gates and wide, heavy swing gates
- Manufacturer warranty on most of the line runs five years commercial and seven years residential (All-O-Matic)
Working mostly in one line is deliberate. We know the control boards, we know how they behave, and when something needs sorting out late in the day it's a system we already know.
Other brands, on request
All-O-Matic is what we recommend, not a rule we make you follow. On request we'll work with the major brands — and if you already have an operator, a keypad or a telephone entry system in the ground, we'll service, repair or replace it no matter whose name is on it.
A good share of our service calls are on equipment we didn't install. You don't have to have bought it from us for us to work on it.
Before you buy a gate
What an automatic gate actually needs
Worth reading before you get quotes. These are the pieces that decide what an automatic gate costs, so knowing them makes it easier to compare what you're looking at.
The things that cost money
- Gate posts. Sized and set for gate weight and leverage, not fence weight. The single most common failure we're called to fix.
- Power to the gate. A trench from the house to the road is real work, and it's why solar sometimes wins.
- A level enough swing path. Drives that climb or crown may need a slide gate instead.
- Safety devices and loops. Loops mean cutting the drive.
- Room to park a slide gate. No side room means cantilever, and cantilever needs even more.
What goes into a gate quote
- What size operator, and why that one for this gate's weight and width?
- What safety devices are included — and what happens if the gate hits a car?
- Does the gate open on a power outage, and how?
- Who wires it — your crew, or an electrician you're scheduling separately?
- Who do I call when the keypad stops working in two years?
Those last two are the ones that separate bids that look identical on paper.
Operator service & repair
Gate quit working?
We service what we installed and plenty we didn't. Most of these calls are a diagnosis problem before they're a parts problem.
Operator & electrical
- Gate won't open, or opens and won't close
- Dead or intermittent control board
- Failed relay, transformer or power supply
- Battery backup no longer holding
- Solar panel or charge issue
- Photo eye misaligned or failed, stopping the gate
Entry & controls
- Keypad dead, or codes no longer working
- Intercom or call box not calling out
- System calls fine but won't connect for programming
- Remotes stopped working or need re-learning
- Adding and removing residents or codes
- Loop no longer detecting vehicles
The gate itself
- Gate dragging, sagging or hitting the ground
- Post leaning under gate weight
- Hinges worn or pulled out
- Latch no longer catching
- Storm or vehicle damage
- Welds cracked at the frame corner
Call 828.545.5711 Send photos of the gate
Photos of the operator label and the control board save a trip more often than any description does — the model number tells us what parts to bring.
Straight answers
Gate questions
Can you automate a gate I already have?
Often, yes — and it's a common call. What has to check out first is the gate and the posts, not the motor. If the gate is already sagging, or the post moves when you push the gate, adding a motor just breaks it faster, because an operator opens and closes far more often than a person does. We look at the hinges, the frame and the post before we quote an operator, and if the honest answer is that the gate needs rebuilding first, we'll say that.
Do I need an electrician?
Our crews do the operator wiring and the low-voltage work. We're not electricians, so where a new circuit has to come off the house panel we bring in a licensed electrician we work with regularly. We line that up as part of the job, so you're not the one chasing two trades.
What if there's no power at the road?
Solar is usually the answer, and it works better than people expect on a residential drive that cycles a handful of times a day. A high-traffic gate or a heavy slide gate is a different math problem — more cycles means more power, and at some point trenching for line power is the cheaper long-term answer. We'll tell you which side of that line your gate falls on.
How wide can a driveway gate be?
Wider than most people ask for. The real limits are gate weight, wind load, and what the posts can carry — which is why a wide opening usually becomes a double swing, a slide, or a cantilever rather than one giant leaf. On commercial work we've built cantilever gates up to a 40 ft opening. Tell us the opening and what has to drive through it.
Will an automatic gate stop for my car or my kid?
It will if it's built right. That's what photo eyes, safety edges and reversing sensors are for. We treat them as part of an automatic gate rather than an upsell, so they're in every quote we write. It's worth checking that any quote you're comparing lists them too.
My gate calls out fine but the company can't program it. What's wrong?
Almost always the network, not the gate. On a modern entry system the voice path and the data path are separate — the box can place calls while the data connection to the programming server is blocked by the router's firewall level, a changed public IP, missing port forwarding, or a service registration that lapsed. It's a real fix and we've chased it down in the field. If your entry system works for calls but nobody can update it, that's the call to make.
Can you match a gate to my existing fence?
Yes — that's most of what we build. Wood, vinyl, aluminum, iron and chain-link gates get built to match the fence they hang in. Matching a fence somebody else installed is usually fine; matching a specific manufacturer's picket profile or an old ironwork pattern is a fabrication question, and sometimes the honest answer is "close, not identical." Send photos and we'll tell you which one it is.
Do you do access control without the fence?
Yes. If somebody else built the gate, or it came with the house, we'll still fit an operator, keypad or intercom to it and service it afterwards. One thing we'll be straight about at the walk-through: some gates need the hinges, posts or frame sorted out before an operator will run reliably on them, and if yours is one of those we'll say so rather than bolt a motor onto a gate that can't carry it. More on gate repair and operator service →
Mark Morris and his team installed a large backyard fence for us with multiple gates. It was the most positive experience from start to finish. He was personable and easy to communicate with; a true professional. He provided quality workmanship and was highly attentive to detail.