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 Repair Across Kennedale
Gate repair in Kennedale usually costs between $180 and $650 depending on whether we’re resetting a clay-heaved post, straightening a storm-bent track, or replacing an opener circuit board. Most repairs on this side of Tarrant County get done same-day or next-day because we keep common parts for LiftMaster, FAAC, and Mighty Mule in the truck, not in a warehouse two days out. If your gate is leaning, dragging, or stuck after last night’s wind, call (817) 241-4067 and a live person answers. That’s Hal or someone on his crew, not a phone tree.
We work Kennedale every week, from the older ranch lots along Kennedale Parkway up to the newer subdivisions near I-20, and we know what the soil and the storms do to gates out here. More on that below, because it’s the reason half the gate repairs in this city are repeat fixes from someone who didn’t dig deep enough the first time.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Kennedale’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
Hal Gatewood has been fixing gates since 2001, and his name is on the shop and on every invoice. That matters when you’re standing in your driveway looking at a 16-foot pipe gate that’s now leaning 12 degrees because the footing was poured too shallow for Houston Black Clay. We’ll tell you what’s wrong, what it costs to fix it right, and what happens if you skip a step. You won’t get a sales pitch for a whole new gate unless yours is genuinely past saving, and even then you’ll get a straight answer about what welding can and can’t do.
Every Gatewood job carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If something we fixed isn’t holding, one call brings us back. No runaround, no “that’s a different issue.” We also publish our address and license number, which is the kind of accountability that matters when you’ve already been burned once by someone who quoted on the phone and showed up with a different number.
Kennedale is close enough that we don’t charge a trip fee anywhere inside the county. Calls are answered by a live person 24/7 because gates fail at 9 p.m. during a thunderstorm, not at a convenient time. If you want to know what kind of outfit we are, drive by the shop. The gate is working, the welds are clean, and that’s the standard.
Our Gate Repair Services in Kennedale
Hinge & Post Repair
The single most common call we run in Kennedale starts with a sagging gate. Everyone looks at the middle of the panel, but the failure is in the hinge post, and that’s where we start. On Kennedale’s larger lots, many posts were set 18 to 24 inches deep back when this was agricultural land. That’s fine in sandy soil. In Houston Black Clay, which swells and shrinks with every drought-to-rain cycle, those posts heave and tilt 10 to 15 degrees within a year or two. The fix isn’t tightening a bolt. We extract the post, auger to 36 inches minimum, pour a bell-bottom footing, and remount the panel properly. Fix the panel without the post and you’ll fix it twice.
We also weld cracked hinge barrels on site, replace bent pins, and re-shim posts that have moved without needing full extraction, but only when the ground is stable enough to justify it. You’ll get an honest read on which one applies to your gate.
Automatic Gate Repair
Automatic gate repair in Kennedale covers everything from a dead opener to a gate that opens halfway and reverses. We service LiftMaster, FAAC, BFT, Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, DoorKing, Elite, and Mighty Mule, and we carry common boards, arms, and limit switches in the truck. The North Texas ice storms that hit every January or February are brutal on opener circuit boards, and the 100-plus degree summers are brutal on motors that have been running for a decade without maintenance. If your opener shorted in the last freeze or binds in the afternoon heat, call us before you buy a replacement. A lot of the time we can rebuild the board or replace a capacitor and you keep a motor that still has years left in it.
Show me the gate closing on its own and I’ll show you where it’s failing. Reverse too soon, and it’s usually the safety edge or photo eye. Won’t move at all, and it’s power, board, or capacitor. We diagnose it in person, not over the phone with a credit card on file.
Gate Realignment
Kennedale sits directly in the path of the severe thunderstorm lines that roll through Tarrant County, and 60 to 80 mph gusts knock slide gates off their tracks with depressing regularity. Older 1970s ranch-era panels without reinforcement bend at the rack and pinion, and suddenly the gate sounds like it’s chewing gravel every time it moves. We straighten rails, re-track the rollers, replace bent rack sections, and add reinforcement where the panel is flexing too much. If wind keeps doing this to your gate, there’s a structural reason, and we’ll tell you what it is.
Steel gates also bind in summer when the metal expands in the heat. A gate that runs smooth at 7 a.m. and stops at 3 p.m. isn’t broken; it’s physically larger than it was eight hours ago. We adjust clearances with that in mind, not against it.
Weld & Rust Repair
Heavy pipe pasture gates from Kennedale’s agricultural past were built to hold livestock, and most of them are still on the job. But 40 years of rain, humidity, and North Texas freeze-thaw cycles takes the bottom rail first. We weld on site in your driveway, which means your gate doesn’t leave the property. Rust-through at the bottom hinge, cracked upright, busted picket welds, we repair all of it and paint or treat the weld so it doesn’t fail again next season.
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 Kennedale
We’re certified to service nine major gate opener brands, including LiftMaster, FAAC, BFT, Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, DoorKing, Elite, and Mighty Mule. For Kennedale customers, that matters because we don’t order a generic board and hope it fits. If you’ve got a Ghost Controls solar opener on a back acreage gate with no line voltage, we stock what that system needs and we know how to diagnose it in the sun and the rain. Same with the old Linear swing arms still running on 1990s suburban installs. We keep parts local and we don’t tell you a brand is “obsolete” just because it takes an extra day to source.
Common Gate Repair Problems We See in Kennedale Homes
- Clay-heaved posts that tilt 10 to 15 degrees. The Houston Black Clay across Kennedale’s larger lots expands and contracts dramatically through wet and dry cycles. Posts set at 18 to 24 inches simply can’t hold, and the gate starts scraping, dragging, or latching poorly by spring.
- Storm-bent track and rack on slide gates. Severe straight-line winds from Tornado Alley thunderstorms knock panels off their tracks and bend rack sections on older un-reinforced gates, especially those original to 1970s ranch homes.
- Opener failures after January and February ice storms. Moisture intrusion into circuit boards and swollen wooden panels that bind the photo eye path are our two biggest winter call categories in Kennedale.
- Summer thermal binding on steel gates. When air temperatures pass 100°F, steel expands enough to bind tracks and hinge clearances. A gate that worked fine at dawn can stall by mid-afternoon without anything being “broken,” but it still needs adjustment by someone who knows the trade.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Kennedale, TX
A typical hinge or post repair in Kennedale runs $180 to $450, depending on whether we’re re-shimming an existing post or extracting and re-pouring a clay-heaved footing at proper depth. Gate realignment and track repair generally runs $150 to $400. Automatic opener diagnosis and repair starts around $125 for a service call and runs $200 to $650 for board replacement, capacitor work, or motor rebuilds. Full post replacement with a 36-inch bell-bottom footing on a heavy pipe gate is $450 to $900 because it includes demolition, concrete, welding, and remounting.
These are real numbers for this market, not a bait quote. You’ll get an exact price in writing before any work starts, and the price doesn’t change at the door. We also offer $40 off any repair over $200, no trip charge inside the county, a free second opinion on any written estimate, and a permanent 10% discount for seniors and veterans. Call (817) 241-4067 and you’ll get a straight answer.
We Also Serve Cities Near Kennedale
Gatewood Fence & Gate runs regular routes through Gate Repair territory across southeast Tarrant County. If you’re in Arlington, Fort Worth, Hurst, or North Richland Hills, the same owner-operated crew handles your call. For addresses inside Kennedale itself, see our Gate Repair in Kennedale page for neighborhood-specific details.
Serving Kennedale, TX - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Kennedale 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 Kennedale
Because the post is set too shallow for Houston Black Clay. Kennedale’s soil is a Vertisol, which swells when wet and shrinks when dry, and that movement physically walks a shallow post out of plumb within one rain-to-drought cycle. Straightening it without digging deeper is temporary. The permanent fix is extracting the post, augering to 36 inches, and pouring a bell-bottom concrete footing so the base is below the active clay movement zone. Call (817) 241-4067 if you’re tired of re-straightening the same post every year. The estimate is free.
Yes, and this is actually one of the most common service calls in Kennedale. A lot of properties here still have the original agricultural pipe gate at the back of the lot and a newer automated ornamental iron gate at the front. We carry welding gear and opener parts on the same truck, so the same crew handles both jobs without a second trip charge. The old gate gets welded and re-hung properly, the new one gets diagnosed and repaired, and you’re done in one visit.
First, find the manual release lever on the opener; most slide and swing gate operators have one near the motor housing. Pull it to disengage the motor, then push the gate open by hand. If the gate won’t budge, don’t force it; the track or hinges may already be storm-damaged. For an emergency gate repair in Kennedale during or right after a storm, call us at (817) 241-4067. A live person answers around the clock, and we’ll walk you through the release procedure before we even get in the truck.
Steel expands as it heats up. On a 100°F afternoon with direct sun, a steel gate frame and track can grow enough to bind at the rollers or hinge clearances that were set tight during cooler weather. It’s a physics problem, not a broken opener. The fix is adjusting clearances for summer expansion, not replacing the motor. We set gate clearances around Kennedale with the local heat in mind, because this exact call comes in every July and August.
Not necessarily. Ice storm damage is often confined to the circuit board, capacitors, or moisture-corroded connections, all of which can be repaired or replaced component by component. Unless the motor itself is burned out or the board is no longer manufactured and a retrofit costs more than a new unit, we repair it. That’s the repair-first approach we’ve run on since 2001; we fix the gate in your driveway rather than upselling a whole new opener. Call (817) 241-4067 for a diagnosis, and we’ll tell you honestly which side of the line your system falls on.
What to Do When Your Gate Is Storm-Damaged in Kennedale
Kennedale sits right at the edge of where Fort Worth stops and rural Tarrant County begins, and that transitional position puts local gates through more than the average suburban gate. The older ranch lots along the southeast quadrant near the Johnson County line still carry deep-set agricultural pipe gates from when this land was pasture, while the same streets have newer automated ornamental iron driveway gates from the suburban buildout. One street can have a 40-year-old pipe gate at the back and a five-year-old slide gate at the front, and both get hammered by the same wind.
The Houston Black Clay under Kennedale is the other half of the story. It doesn’t just drain poorly; it physically moves. Through a single drought-to-rain cycle, it can heave a shallow-set post several inches out of the ground and tilt it 10 to 15 degrees. That’s why we see the same failure over and over: a gate that was installed correctly for another city fails here because the footing wasn’t deep enough for this soil. When we reset a post in Kennedale, we don’t guess at depth. We dig until we’re below the active clay zone, pour a bell-bottom footing, and set the post so it doesn’t come back out.
We reset a 16-foot pipe swing gate on Hudson Village Creek Road after spring storms left the hinge post leaning 12 degrees in that same clay. The original footing was only 20 inches deep. We extracted it, augered to 36 inches, poured the bell-bottom, and remounted the panel with fresh barrel hinges. The customer also had us install a Ghost Controls solar gate opener on that side of the lot because there’s no line voltage running back there. That’s a Kennedale call in one job: old ag gate, clay-heaved post, no power, and a solution that didn’t require trenching new conduit through a half-acre of yard.
Call Gatewood Fence & Gate for Gate Repair in Kennedale
If your gate is leaning, dragging, stuck, or dead after the latest storm, call (817) 241-4067. Hal Gatewood has been fixing gates since 2001, and his name is on the shop and on every invoice. We answer the phone with a live person around the clock, we quote the price before we start, and we stand behind every job with the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If you’d rather talk in person, drive to the shop and look us in the eye. Either way, you’ll get a straight answer and a gate that works.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Kennedale and the surrounding Tarrant County communities since 2001.