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 Converse
Gate repair in Converse, TX typically costs $185-$640 depending on whether the problem is structural (post, hinge, frame) or operator-related (control board, actuator, safety sensor), and most structural jobs are completed on the first visit. If you’re off Toepperwein near Crestview Drive, or deeper into the Converse hills near JBSA-Randolph, the clay under your post is rarely doing you any favors. We know exactly what that soil does to gate hardware, and we quote the fix before we touch a bolt. Call (940) 412-7340 for an honest assessment – a live person answers around the clock.
Key Takeaways
- Most gate repairs in Converse run $185-$640; full gate replacement with new posts typically $1,800-$4,200, sized for Blackland Prairie clay.
- Converse’s shrink-swell clay repeatedly throws posts out of plumb – the footing, not the gate panel, is usually the real problem.
- Every Portcullis repair is covered by the 365-Day Done Right Promise: written guarantee, free return visit if it fails.
- You get a written price before any work starts. Always. No door-price bump.
- We keep parts on our trucks for FAAC, BFT, and Linear operators common across Converse.
Why Portcullis Gate Repair Is Converse’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
We answer the phone live, 24 hours a day, and we show up in the window we gave you. Converse homeowners have told us the same story for years: another company no-showed, then quoted one number on the phone and another at the door. That’s not how Portcullis works. We’re an independently owned Kingswell company, held to the same four written commitments on every job here: a written price before any work starts, a real arrival window, a clean job site, and a written guarantee on the repair.
Dean Prescott has run our operation with one standing rule since we began doing Kingswell work back in 2008: if a Converse gate repair fails inside a year, we come back and fix it at no charge. That’s the 365-Day Done Right Promise, printed on every invoice, not implied. Our reviews in Converse keep pointing to the same things – the technician was on time, the price matched the quote, and the gate still opens correctly a full wet season later.
Response time to most Converse neighborhoods runs under 90 minutes for non-emergency structural calls. Emergency calls for a gate stuck open or a failed operator that leaves your property unsecured get prioritized ahead of scheduled installs. Our technicians are uniformed and background-checked, and they’ve worked on nearly every swing and slide configuration in the newer subdivisions along FM 78 and the older streets near the Judson school zone.
Iron Gate Repair in Converse
Iron Gate Repair in Converse usually means one of three things: a weld cracked at a hinge or rail joint, a post that the clay has pushed out of plumb, or rust that has worked through a bottom rail. The weld and rust work is straightforward and fast. The post is the part that decides whether a repair holds up for one season or ten. On Converse iron gates, we routinely cut out the old undersized footing, dig deeper, and pour a wider concrete base sized for the shrink-swell cycle before we re-hang the leaf. If a repair fails, it’s almost always the footing that failed.
Weld and Rust Repair Scope
A cracked weld on an ornamental iron gate off North Foster Road can let a 300-pound leaf droop an inch in a week, binding the latch and scraping the concrete. That’s a one-trip fix in most cases: grind back the crack, re-weld with correct penetration, and touch up the coating. Converse’s heat-and-humidity cycle accelerates surface rust, especially where sprinkler overspray hits the bottom rail near the road. We’ll roll the problem area, treat the corrosion, and tell you honestly whether the rest of the frame still has years in it.
Sliding Gate Repair in Converse
Sliding Gate Repair in Converse is a taller order than most homeowners expect. A slide gate runs on a track and rolls on wheels, and when the track settles unevenly in Converse’s clay – which it does, every dry summer, then again after the first big rain – the gate starts dragging and the operator eats itself trying to push it. The first thing we check is whether the track was set on a proper concrete bed or just laid on grade. Many were just laid on grade.
What costs what: replacing a bent or rusted section of roller track runs $220-$480. Replacing a worn operator motor and board runs $340-$780. Resetting a settled section of track concrete runs about the same as the post work. Most Converse slide gate failures we see are combinations: the gate was never perfectly level, the wheels were never lubricated, and the operator has been fighting the drag for years until the gearbox strips or the control board overheats. We’d rather tell you the truth now than sell you the same repair twice, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise forces us to be straight about it.
Track Bearing and Wheel Replacement
Worn bearings and flat-spotted wheels are the most common mechanical failure on Converse slide gates. If the gate sounds like it’s dragging a bag of rocks, the bearings are gone and the motor is working harder than it should. Replacement is quick and cheap compared to a new operator – usually $140-$310 parts and labor. We’ll also check the track bolts while we’re in there, because the vibration of a bad bearing has usually loosened them.
Trusted Brands We Service in Converse
Most Converse gates run on one of three operator families: FAAC, BFT, or Linear. We carry rotating-stock repair parts for all three on our trucks, which means a failed capacitor or a stripped rack-and-pinion gear doesn’t strand your gate for a week waiting on a distributor. When a board is fried beyond repair, we can often get the replacement unit the same day from our parts network and have it installed by the next morning. We also service Viking operators when we see them, but FAAC, BFT, and Linear cover the vast majority of Converse installations we touch.
Common Gate Repair Problems We See in Converse Homes
- Posts levered out of plumb by Blackland Prairie clay. A gate that scraped fine in April drags the ground in October. The post moved, not the gate. We reset it with a deeper, wider footing and it holds.
- Original 1980s cedar gates with rotted bottom rails and corroded hinges. These tract-home gates were hung 30-40 years ago with minimal post depth and standard concrete. By now, the hardware is often the only thing still holding – and it’s failing.
- Undersized operators working against a gate that’s been dragging for years. A gate operator that should last 15 years burns out in 6 because it’s been feeding a gate with a leaning post and a cracked bottom rail. The operator failure is the symptom, not the disease.
- Entrapment protection that was never installed or has failed. Many Converse gates predate modern UL 325 entrapment requirements. If your gate doesn’t auto-reverse when it hits resistance, it’s a legitimate safety problem, not a code technicality.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Converse, TX
Here’s what gate repair in Converse actually costs, parts and labor included. Soft-start capacitor replacement or basic photo-eye alignment: $95-$210. Hinge post reset with new concrete footing sized for clay soil: $280-$540. Rack-and-pinion re-alignment on a slide gate: $180-$360. Weld repair on a cracked iron gate frame: $150-$350. Control board replacement (part and labor): $240-$640, depending on brand and whether it’s a board-only swap or a full enclosure replacement. Full gate replacement with two new posts, hardware, and installation runs $1,800-$4,200 on average in Converse. You get the price in writing before we start, always. To get an exact quote for your gate, call (940) 412-7340 and we’ll walk it together.
We Also Serve Cities Near Converse
Our technicians cover all of Converse plus the surrounding Bexar County suburbs. That includes Universal City, Schertz, Cibolo, and San Antonio proper. If you’re on the edge of Converse and one of those city limits runs through your street, call anyway. We’ll tell you straight if you’re in our service area. And if you want to understand more about how the broader Gate Repair service works beyond just Converse, that page walks through the full process. For details specific to the Converse market, see Gate Repair in Converse.
Serving Converse, TX - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Converse 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 Converse
Most of the time, you need a post reset, not a new gate. Converse’s Blackland Prairie clay cracks in the drought and heaves in the wet season, levering your post out of plumb every year. If the gate itself is solid apart from the drag and the bottom rail isn’t rotted through, we’ll reset the post on a deeper, wider clay-rated footing and rehang the gate. That runs $280-$540 and fixes the root cause. If the gate is 30+ years old and the bottom rail is cracked or soft, the honest answer is replacement – the $1,800-$4,200 range – because we’d otherwise be back in two years chasing the same rot. Call (940) 412-7340 and we’ll tell you which one you’ve got.
Rarely. A stiff gate is almost always mechanical, even if the operator is 20 years old. In Converse, the usual culprit is a levered post binding the hinge or rack-and-pinion, followed by worn bearings on a slide gate or a rusted bottom rail dragging. The operator is just the motor trying to fight that bind. Old boards don’t make a gate stiff – they fail outright, in the form of tripped breakers, unresponsive buttons, or a board that clicks and does nothing. We fix the mechanical bind first, then test the board under a clean load. Call (940) 412-7340 for a free-style diagnosis over the phone first if you want.
No. Any automatic gate in Converse – and anywhere else in the U.S. – must have working entrapment protection per UL 325. That means a reversing edge or photo-eye pair that stops and reverses the gate if something blocks it. Many original 1980s-2000s gates around Crestview and Toepperwein were installed before those rules were tight, and the safety edges have since been unplugged or rotted out. If your gate just pushes through resistance, don’t test it with your arm. We can retrofit entrapment protection onto most existing operators, usually for $180-$420 parts and labor. If the operator is too old to accept modern safety inputs, the fix is a new operator, and we’ll tell you that before buying anything.
Because the problem is the ground, not the hardware. The original gates went in on standard 18-24 inch post holes with standard concrete footings, and Converse’s clay has been working those footings for 30 years. When the clay shrinks in drought, it pulls away from the concrete. When it rains, it swells and pushes the footing sideways. New hinges or a new latch on a moving post is a band-aid that lasts six months. We go down 30-36 inches, widen the hole, and pour a footing sized for the shrink-swell cycle so the post stays vertical through the next wet season. Call (940) 412-7340 for a quote – we’ll give you the price in writing before we dig.
Yes, and this is one of the most common calls we take in Converse. PCS moves happen fast, and a gate with a broken latch plus a leaning post plus a cracked bottom rail is a house that won’t clear inspection or sell clean. We quote the entire repair as one written price, before any work starts, and we schedule it around your move date. The 365-Day Done Right Promise stays with the house, so the next owner is covered. If you’re leaving in two weeks and need the gate working and the property secure before the inspector shows up, call (940) 412-7340 and tell us your timeline. We’ll make it work.
Written by Dean Prescott, Owner at Portcullis Gate Repair, serving Converse since 2008.