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 Cleburne
Gate repair in Cleburne usually runs $180-$340 for a hinge, post, or alignment fix, and $450-$950 when an automatic opener needs new boards, arms, or safety edges. We answer the phone around the clock, give you a written price before any bolt is turned, and our Cleburne crews arrive in a real window we commit to. Call Portcullis Gate Repair at (940) 412-7340 for a free estimate on swing gates, sliding gates, and automatic driveway operators anywhere in Cleburne.
Cleburne is not a one-size-fits-all market. Homes near the historic downtown square have gates that were hung fifty or eighty years ago. The newer subdivisions on the edges of town have them on two-year-old brick homes with fresh operators. And along the FM roads ringing the county, we get ranch gates that hold back cattle, not just decorate a driveway. The one thing every Cleburne gate shares is Johnson County clay soil underneath it, and that soil moves more than any hinge ever will.
Why Portcullis Gate Repair Is Cleburne’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
Portcullis Gate Repair has operated as an independently owned Kingswell company since 2008. Dean Prescott leads our Cleburne service team, and every technician who shows up at your property is background-checked and in uniform. You know who is walking up your driveway before the truck parks.
Our Cleburne customers call us after other companies have already failed them. The tech never showed, or the quote doubled at the door, or the repair lasted six weeks. That is why we follow the Kingswell Guarantee on every single job: a written price before work starts, a real arrival window, a clean job site, and a written guarantee on the repair. If the repair fails inside 365 days, we come back and fix it at no charge. That is the 365-Day Done Right Promise, and it is stamped on every invoice.
We also answer the phone with a live person at 3 a.m. when an automatic gate is stuck open and the dog is about to wander onto Nolan River Road. No voicemail trees, no next-business-day callback. Someone picks up.
Metal Gate Repair in Cleburne
Metal gate repair in Cleburne handles cracked welds, seized hinges, bent frames, rusted-through pickets, and sagging leaves on ornamental iron and steel gates. On Cleburne’s older homes near the courthouse square, we regularly see wrought iron gates that were built before modern safety photocells existed, hung on posts that have shifted with decades of clay soil movement. The gate itself is often fine. The geometry underneath it has gone wrong.
Typical metal gate repair pricing in Cleburne runs $180-$420 for hinge replacement and sag correction, $250-$550 for weld repair and frame straightening, and $400-$850 when a post needs to be cut loose, re-set, and re-plumbed. We quote the full price in writing before work begins, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
Weld and Rust Repair
North-central Texas triple-digit summers bake moisture out of paint and accelerate surface rust on steel frames, especially around the hinge barrels and bottom corners where sprinklers hit. We grind the rot out, reweld cracked joints with proper penetration, treat the surface, and often recommend reinforcement gussets on gates that have been welded once or twice before. Some of these older Cleburne gates are worth more than the cost of a replacement, and a third weld is often the wrong answer.
Hinge and Post Refitting
When a metal gate starts dragging across the driveway, the hardware is usually not the culprit. Post heave from clay soil is. We check post plumb and footing depth before we change out a hinge, because new hinges bolted onto a heaving post will bind again inside one rain cycle. On the older properties in Cleburne’s historic districts, we often find the original posts were set in concrete that stopped short of stable soil, so we drill, set new piers, and re-mount the gate level.
Wood Gate Repair in Cleburne
Wood gate repair in Cleburne covers rotted stiles and rails, broken hinge screws that have stripped out of the wood, warped pickets, sagging frames, and gate posts that have twisted or heaved out of plane. The homes on West Henderson and down toward the older ranch-style blocks have plenty of cedar and pine gates that fight the North Texas climate and lose: summer heat warps the boards, spring hail beats them, and the clay soil under the posts moves the whole structure a little every year.
Wood gate repair in Cleburne typically runs $150-$350 for stile or rail replacement and sag correction, $200-$450 for post re-setting with new concrete, and $400-$750 when the frame is so far gone that we build new rails and re-hang the existing pickets. If the wood has rotted through at the hinge points, we will say so rather than screw into soft material and hand you a gate that sags again next spring.
Post Re-Set and Sag Correction
A wood gate that drags on the free edge is almost always a post problem wearing a hinge costume. Clay soil heaves the post up, the gate tilts, and the hinges bind. We re-set the post in a deeper concrete footing and re-hang the gate with structural screws and steel backing plates on both sides of the frame. That is the only fix that lasts through Cleburne’s wet-dry cycles.
Rust and Hardware Upgrades
Many wood gates in Cleburne are held together with cheap zinc-plated hinges and screws that corrode or snap after a few seasons. We upgrade to heavy galvanized or stainless hardware, reinforce the hinge points with plate brackets, and replace broken diagonal braces. The gate feels different when you open it, and it quits dropping.
Trusted Brands We Service in Cleburne
Our Cleburne techs carry service experience on LiftMaster, FAAC, BFT, Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, DoorKing, Elite, and Mighty Mule operators. That matters in a town with this many older properties, because a lot of Cleburne gates run on FAAC and DoorKing units that were installed fifteen or twenty years ago and have never been touched since. We stock common control boards, safety photocells, and remote transmitters for those brands, which means fewer two-visit repairs. Call us at (940) 412-7340 and tell us what operator is on your gate. We will usually know the exact part before we roll up.
Common Gate Repair Problems We See in Cleburne Homes
- Post heave from clay soil. Cleburne sits on Blackland Prairie clay that shrinks hard in dry summers and swells after rain. Gate posts lift and lean seasonally, causing gates to drag or bind even when the hinges and latches are fine. This is the single most common root cause we find here.
- Obsolete control boards. Older LiftMaster and FAAC units from the 2000s fail after voltage spikes from spring thunderstorms or after sustained triple-digit heat bakes the board. The motor spins, but the gate doesn’t know where it is, or the safety photocells signal constantly and the gate refuses to close.
- Rural acreage gates on caliche driveways. Properties along the FM roads outside Cleburne often have pipe-and-panel livestock gates on caliche or dirt drives. Drought cracks the footing, the post migrates, and the gate suddenly drags mid-span. It looks like an operator problem. It’s usually a post problem.
- Storm-damaged frames and openers. Spring hail and straight-line winds bend ornamental gate frames and knock automatic openers out of travel limits. The February 2021 freeze also exposed how many Cleburne driveway gate motors lacked proper weather protection, and we still see those failures showing up as intermittent no-start faults.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Cleburne, TX
What should a Cleburne homeowner budget for gate repair? A hinge replacement with sag correction typically runs $180-$320. A post re-set, where we dig out the old footing, pour new concrete, and re-plumb the gate, runs $350-$650 per post depending on depth and access. Full gate realignment, including both posts and frame, lands between $280-$500. Automatic opener repair in Cleburne usually falls between $450-$950 depending on whether the fix is a new control board, a new swing arm, or both. Weld repair for a broken ornamental iron frame runs $250-$550.
The exact number depends on the age of the gate, the condition of the posts, and the operator brand. What doesn’t change is how we price it: you get the number in writing before any work starts, and the work carries the 365-Day Done Right Promise. Call (940) 412-7340 for a free estimate, and we’ll tell you what it costs before we touch a single bolt.
We Also Serve Cities Near Cleburne
Our Gate Repair crews serve Keene, Joshua, Alvarado, and Burleson from the same Cleburne dispatch. If you are in Johnson County or just across the line, you get the same written price, the same real arrival window, and the same written guarantee. This whole area deals with the same clay soil and the same old operators, so the experience carries over cleanly.
Serving Cleburne, TX - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Cleburne 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 About Gate Repair in Cleburne
Usually not. The rain swells the clay under your gate posts, lifts them slightly, and tilts the gate just enough that the free edge scrapes the driveway. The hinges are often fine. We re-set the posts at depth and re-hang the gate. If you just replace the hinges without addressing the post movement, the gate will drag again the next time it rains. Call (940) 412-7340 and we’ll check the post plumb first.
It depends on the failure. If the motor and gears are sound, we can often retrofit a new control board and safety photocells while keeping the existing chassis. That usually runs $400-$650. If the gearbox is worn out or the operator has been lightning-damaged, replacement is the cheaper answer compared to chasing parts on a unit that old. We stock boards for older LiftMaster and FAAC units and can tell you which path makes sense on the first visit.
Yes. A lot of our Cleburne work is on acreage properties along the FM roads that have both a decorative front gate and a working pipe-and-panel livestock gate. We quote and repair both in one visit. That saves the second trip charge and it means the tech who comes out already knows you don’t want a gate that drags when you’re hauling feed.
Check the breaker and the power to the operator first, then look at the safety photocells. Hail knocks photocells out of alignment, and when they misalign the gate reads them as blocked and refuses to move either direction. If the operator hums but doesn’t engage, the storm may have fried the control board. Call (940) 412-7340 and describe what you see. We’ll tell you what’s likely wrong and give you a written quote before we touch it.
We excavate around the post, break out the old concrete, and set a new footing that reaches below the active clay layer. On heavy gates we may over-dig and pour a deeper pier with reinforcing steel. Then we re-plumb the post, re-hang the gate, and torque everything down. The goal is to anchor the post so the soil can move around it without taking the gate along. Every re-set carries the written 365-Day Done Right Promise.
A customer near the historic downtown Cleburne square had a 20-year-old swing gate that started dragging every spring. Our tech found the hinge post had heaved 1.5 inches due to clay soil movement, not worn hinges. We excavated and re-set the post footing with concrete piers to bedrock depth, corrected the sag, and serviced the LiftMaster operator with a new safety photocell. The gate has cleared the driveway through two rain cycles without binding.
That is the difference between changing parts and fixing the gate. A lot of companies in Cleburne will replace a hinge and leave. We look at the post, the footing, the soil, and the operator as one system. That is how a repair lasts a full year through every wet-dry cycle North Texas throws at it, and why our repair comes with a written guarantee instead of a handshake.
If your gate is dragging, binding, or refusing to open, call (940) 412-7340. You’ll reach a live person, you’ll get a written price before any work starts, and you’ll get a repair that lasts. That’s the Kingswell Way, and it’s what every Cleburne customer gets from Portcullis Gate Repair.
Written by Dean Prescott, Owner at Portcullis Gate Repair, serving Cleburne since 2008.