Swing gate or Sliding gate ...Controversy

A question often asked of me..is a swing gate better than a sliding gate?. Lets break it down.. A swing gate has a gate post where a gate is hung and will swing with a swing motor. Size of gate and weight of gate is important. Larger than 4.5m wide is getting too much for most swing motors unless it is an industrial motor... For example a 4.5m cyclone farm gate is light and has almost zero wind resistance so easy to push and pull. Just imagine if you had a gate the same size but it was covered with colorbond. The weight would be still light but the wind resistance would be enormous, and usually too much for a swing motor. They say a swing gate of normal size say 3m should be 30% open for wind. Now if you have double swing gates then you need to get a cable to the other side of the gate for the motor. If you have paving, you need to lift the paving , lay a twin cable and re-lay the paving. If concrete, we use an angle grinder with a concrete blade and make a cut 20mm deep in the concrete for the cable to fit into then silicon over the top. If you are thinking about a sliding gate, then weight and size is not important. But you need a concrete footing twice the width of the gate way, ie somewhere to slide the gate to when it is open. This concrete footing needs to be around 250mm x 250mm reinforced concrete which can be a major cost. If you have a concrete drive or flat paving, then not an issue. A sliding gate needs two tall gate posts at each end with the rollers on to guide the gate etc. All wiring is one side only so that is easy.  I sliding gate kit is cheaper than the double swing gate kit, but the extra cost of the posts, track, rollers etc brings the cost pretty much the same, but if you need to install the concrete footing then the sliding gate cost would be around $1000 more than a good swing kit.. If you have any questions, just give me a call...graeme@gatehousesecurity.com.au