Steel Slide Gates: Uses and Automation

Steel slide gates are in use at residential, commercial, industrial and government locations.

There are several different types of steel slide gates from tracked (both overhead and in pavement), roll gates (both hard rubber and balloon tires) and cantilever slides. The type of slide gate used depends on the available space for the gate, volume of use, security requirements, type of surface at the gate opening and the project budget.

Steel is more forgiving to the incidental bumps from vehicle traffic than other materials resulting in fewer and less costly gate repairs. Slide gates enable a large gate to be easily opened or closed even in the manual mode.                

Steel gates do not experience the sagging problems incurred by swing gates and do not require larger post sizes as the gate leaf increases. It is quite common to have single slide gates covering an opening of 30 feet and still use the same post size as much smaller openings. Existing manual slide gates can easily retrofitted to an automatic application at less cost than a single or double swing when a single slide gate is the object of the retrofit.

The drawbacks to steel slide gates. The gates are heavy and weight is the enemy of rollers, tracks, wheels and operators. The higher the volume of traffic through the access road the greater the strain on the gate system. Much of this can be eliminated with proper and routine maintenance of the slide gate and rollers. Polyurethane gate rollers also save wear and tear on the gates and ease the operation of the gate considerably.

The most popular slide gate in today’s market is the cantilever slide gate. This popularity will remain the case until gates that provide the strength of steel, the lighter weight of aluminum and the resulting freedom of maintenance that it provides is available at a reasonable cost.